30GB max partition size limit for install

[kejianshi]

Yes - very strange.  My personal one is 50GB.

My 1st one ever was about 500GB? (Total overkill, but I didn't know at the time)

[Wolf666]

No problem with mi Intel S3500 SSD 80 GB.

[stephenw10]

Are those one single 'partition' though?

Steve

[aGeekhere]

Hi I am running it on an old p4 which came with an old IDE 250GB hard drive WD-WMAEP1110635.

It seems that every time I create a single partition (for the os) larger then 30GB pfsense will fail lunch (get the non moving \ error).

As far as why do I need such a large  partition , well what else is the drive going to do?

[kejianshi]

Well, the good news is that 30 is plenty.

Not sure why you are having issues though.

Could it be the HDD its self?

[cmb]

Tends to be some weirdness of the BIOS when that happens. Upgrade the BIOS if possible, that may fix it.

Generally having / be a smaller partition (less than 30 GB in this case), and use the rest as /usr or something else, will work around such issues. Generally the boot partition that has to be at the beginning of the drive in that scenario.

[aGeekhere]

Funny thing is that it once worked, and I was able to use the whole drive (it happen after trying another Router OS then coming back to pfsense).

Maybe boot loader?

[kejianshi]

I also like that theory…

REALLY wipe the drive with gparted.  Try again.

[aGeekhere]

I used boot and nuke, i think it is the other way around. The other OS install a bootloader that worked?
I will try it again to see how i go.

[aGeekhere]

ok here is the error i get if i create a single partition size to the size of the hard drive

error 1 lba 380868527
error 1 lba 380868527
no /boot/loader

FreeBSD/86 boot
Default: 0:as(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:
error 1 lba 380868527
no /boot/kernel/kernel

FreeBSD/86 boot
Default: 0:as(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:

If I create 2 partitions , 1 50GB the other 200GB and install on the 200GB i get
\

If I create 2 partitions , 1 30GB the other * and install on the 30GB. Works.

[jimp]

As CMB said that's almost always a BIOS interaction issue. It could be the BIOS + FreeBSD's boot loader, but the BIOS is almost always to blame.

Using a custom install and making a 30GB / and using the rest for /usr is the best way around it.

Or you could fuss with something like grub to see if that might help.

Or toss the old junker and replace it with something better. :-)

[stephenw10]

@jimp:

Or toss the old junker and replace it with something better. :-)

Bah! That's taking the easy way out and this guy's middle name is geek.  ;D

Steve

[kejianshi]

Definitely no need to toss it.  30GB is plenty…

[aGeekhere]

30GB will do the job, thanks all :)