Installation Hang

hoba

My system at home actually is an IBM eserver e330. You need to disable the floppy controller and you need to disable cdrom dma modes (see http://wiki.pfsense.com/wikka.php?wakka=BootOptions -> hw.ata.atapi_dma=0 ). Besides that it's working fine, even with the scsi raid controller.

GeeZuZz

I have the same problem. The computer always freezes right after detecting DVD-rom.

Other notes:

If i plug in a floppy drive, it will read from the floppy before it freezes
No change if i disable floppy in bios
Tried 4 different cd-rom's, all freezes at the same point
Tried two different cd''s.
Tried different connection setups (master/slave/ide1/ide2)

Last line shown before freezing is usually:
"GEOM_LABEL: Label for provider acd0 is iso9660/pfSense"

Does anyone have any suggestions? Using the latest (1.01) image btw.

hoba

Disable dma for atapi cdroms (see http://wiki.pfsense.com/wikka.php?wakka=BootOptions ).

sullrich

http://wiki.pfsense.com/wikka.php?wakka=BootTroubleShooting

GeeZuZz

@hoba:

Disable dma for atapi cdroms (see http://wiki.pfsense.com/wikka.php?wakka=BootOptions ).

I don't have any specific dma options in the extremely simple compaq bios, but i "disabled" all ide related features.
I also chose option 6 when booting to get to command line and wrote the set commands before i entered "boot" - but still it just freezes.
I can see that both harddrive and dvd-rom was mounted in PIO4 mode, so dma is disabled.

sullrich: Only the first sentence there applies to me, and i have already tried disabling the floppy. To start with i didn't even had a floppy drive connected.

Thanks for your quick replies.

sullrich

You dont need to disable it in the bios. The page that hoba pointed out has instructions on how to do so.

GeeZuZz

@sullrich:

You dont need to disable it in the bios. The page that hoba pointed out has instructions on how to do so.

Yes, but it is disabled - it says PIO4 for both the harddrive and cd-rom.

I also have tested with an very old cd-rom which doesn't even support dma.

sullrich

You are still missing the point. You need to tell FreeBSD to disable it.

GeeZuZz

@sullrich:

You are still missing the point. You need to tell FreeBSD to disable it.

I know, i select "Escape to loader prompt" and at the loader prompt i enter: "set hw.ata.ata_dma=0" and "set hw.ata.atapi_dma=0" before i enter "boot".

GeeZuZz

I guess Freebsd 6 simply doesn't support my motherboard (it's an old Compaq P3 500mhz pc).

This problem is obviously not related to the devices themselves - since it even occurs with neither of them connected. Just tried to install pfsense to a harddrive using vmware, and then plug in the harddrive in the "problem-computer", and it froze at the same place, just this it was after detecting the hd (since cd-rom was not connected). Same problem when booting from cd without hdd also.

My guess is that it's not related to detection of these devices at all - but it freezes when starting the next step of the bootup. Maybe someone with a working system could check what happens just after the devices have been detected?

Too bad i have to continue use m0n0wall, cause theres some features in pfsense i really want :(

hoba

Did you try a biosupdate?