<![CDATA[Boot stage 3 file not found]]>I upgraded from 2.7.0 to 2.7.2 and now my machine will not cleanly boot. I don't actually know if the problem started with this upgrade, or with the previous one (2.6->2.7) and was just hiding. The machine stays up for a long time.

This is older hardware, booting with BIOS. It is running a ZFS root system. The problem is that, on boot, it stops at what I think is before Stage 3, and says:

/boot/config:  <smiley>

FreeBSD/x86 boot
Default: zroot:<smiley>
boot:

where "<smiley>" is a some sort of DOS box character.

If I then manually type in "/boot/loader", it boots just fine.

So, everything seems to be OK, except that it does not want to pickup /boot/loader by default (which the manual seems to imply it should).

Any help would be appreciated. I am very familiar with Linux, not so much with BSD.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/topic/187760/boot-stage-3-file-not-foundRSS for NodeTue, 16 Jun 2026 09:17:21 GMTFri, 26 Apr 2024 18:22:05 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to Boot stage 3 file not found on Fri, 26 Apr 2024 18:53:16 GMT]]>Well, I guess posting helped. I finally found the right info, which is "boot.config". The machine had no "/boot.config" or "/boot/config" file. I added one containing:

zroot:/boot/zfsloader

and it now boots without intervention. The files "/boot.config" and "/boot/config" both worked.

]]>https://forum.netgate.com/post/1165525https://forum.netgate.com/post/1165525Fri, 26 Apr 2024 18:53:16 GMT