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    Pfsense on Watchguard x750e - Upgrade from CF to HDD?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • M Offline
      MacUsers
      last edited by

      Thanks Steve!

      So, I assume, the other side of the adapter (in the picture) with the caddy in eBay, that you liked, is for the CN_IDE2 to directly connect to it? Best!

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      • stephenw10S Offline
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        Yes, exactly.
        It was the same caddy used in the X-Peak which I put up some pictures of here:
        https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=25011.msg154292#msg154292
        and
        https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=25011.msg129676#msg129676

        Steve

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        • M Offline
          MacUsers
          last edited by

          Thanks for the conformation, Steve! Ordered now.

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          • M Offline
            MacUsers
            last edited by

            Hi Steve,

            The caddy arrived and it was a perfect fit. Very happy to see the HDD in the case.

            However, it cannot really boot off it at all. If I attach the HDD to laptop, it boots off the disk without any error at all. The jumper is set to "Slave" in the HDD and it's being detected correct by the BIOS:

            
                                       Phoenix Technologies, LTD
                                         System Configurations
            +==============================================================================+
            | CPU Type  : Genuine Intel(R) processor  Base Memory       :    640K          |
            | CPU ID/uco: 0695/45                     Extended Memory   :1039360K          |
            | CPU Clock : 1.30GHz                     Cache Memory      :    512K          |
            |------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
            | Pri. Master Disk  : LBA,PIO 4,  512MB   Display Type      : EGA/VGA          |
            | Pri. Slave  Disk  : LBA,PIO 4,40010MB   Serial Port(s)    : 3F8 2F8          |
            | Sec. Master Disk  : None                Parallel Port(s)  : 378              |
            | Sec. Slave  Disk  : None                DDR2 at Bank(s)   : 0 2              |
            +==============================================================================+
            
            

            but after the Memory Test, all I get a blank screen on the serial console a "Booting  OS…" on the LCD display. I followed the instruction, as you outlined here: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=56234.msg300946#msg300946 Any idea what's am I still possibly missing?

            Best!

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            • M Offline
              MacUsers
              last edited by

              Finally worked!!!  :)

              It was my bad to start with: Forgot to enable the serial port console and then caught by the v2.2 DMA access issues, which needs to be disabled beforehand. once these two things fixed pfSense started booting without any problem. Used a 40G Toshiba MK4026GAX.

              I didn't have to do verbose boot or enter ufs:/dev/ad1s1a during the boot though. The only thing needs to be fixed now is the fan-speed control, which seems to be broken in 2.2 for fanctrl-new script.

              Thanks for your help, Steve!!

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              • stephenw10S Offline
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                No problem.
                You should be able boot with DMA enabled if you don't have the CF card in though. I have a box here doing that.

                [2.2.2-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/root: dmesg | grep ada
                ada0 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
                ada0: <toshiba mk2018gap="" m1.42="" a="">ATA-5 device
                ada0: Serial Number 32K60131T
                ada0: 33.300MB/s transfers (UDMA2, PIO 8192bytes)
                ada0: 19077MB (39070080 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 16383C)
                ada0: Previously was known as ad0
                Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ada0s1a [rw]...</toshiba> 
                
                [2.2.2-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/root: camcontrol negotiate /dev/ada0 -v
                Current parameters:
                (pass0:ata0:0:0:0): ATA mode: UDMA2
                (pass0:ata0:0:0:0): ATAPI packet length: 0
                (pass0:ata0:0:0:0): PIO transaction length: 8192
                (pass0:ata0:0:0:0): tagged queueing: disabled
                ata0: SIM/HBA version: 1
                ata0: supports SDTR message
                ata0: scan bus sequentially
                ata0: HBA engine count: 0
                ata0: maximum target: 1
                ata0: maximum LUN: 0
                ata0: highest path ID in subsystem: 0
                ata0: initiator ID: 0
                ata0: SIM vendor: FreeBSD
                ata0: HBA vendor: ATA
                ata0: HBA vendor ID: 0x8086
                ata0: HBA device ID: 0x266f
                ata0: HBA subvendor ID: 0x8086
                ata0: HBA subdevice ID: 0x266f
                ata0: bus ID: 0
                ata0: base transfer speed: 3.300MB/sec
                ata0: maximum transfer size: 131072 bytes
                
                

                Steve

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                • M Offline
                  MacUsers
                  last edited by

                  Already tried without the CF card in - it does't even start booting after the POST/Memory Test. Is there anything else to do in BIOS for that?

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                  • stephenw10S Offline
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    No. I don't think so. I think the drive is configured as master and is detected as such.
                    What BIOS version are you on though? I'm running 8.1

                    Steve

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                    • M Offline
                      MacUsers
                      last edited by

                      Mine not 8.x for sure, 7b i think. Is 8 branch stable now?
                      Also, where do I get the 8.1 BIOS?

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                      • stephenw10S Offline
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Yeah, I've seen no reported issues with it.
                        You can get it here: https://sites.google.com/site/pfsensefirebox/home/XEBIOS_81.BIN

                        Steve

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                        • M Offline
                          MacUsers
                          last edited by

                          One quick question: After flushing the BIOS, where/how do I check the BIOS version? Best!

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                          • stephenw10S Offline
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            The easiest place to check it is at the boot POST screen.
                            It may be possible to read it with some utility from the pfSense command line, I haven't tried that. Any utilities I did use were under 8.1.
                            You can read it from FreeDOS with the biosid command but that's less convenient.

                            Steve

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