Embedded on CF: cannot mount root unless using mountroot

[trentdk]

I'm using the pfSense embedded image on a CF card attached through a SATA port. No other device attached to the system. I'm having a problem getting it to automatically mount root without me interfering:

ad0: 3831MB <cf 20090216="" card="" 4gb=""> at ata0-master PIO4
GEOM: ad0: partition 4 does not start on a track boundary.
GEOM: ad0: partition 4 does not end on a track boundary.
GEOM: ad0: partition 1 does not start on a track boundary.
GEOM: ad0: partition 1 does not end on a track boundary.
WARNING: Expected rawoffset 0, found 20480
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad2s4a
last message repeated 16 times
Manual root filesystem specification:
mountroot> ? (List valid disk boot devices)
ufsid/4ac8f8d2dfd23a1b ufsid/4ac8f8d14f9d47a1 ad0s4d ad0s4c ad0s4a ad0s4 ad0s1 ad0
mountroot> ufs:ad0s4a</cf>

That last command gets me into pfSense, but not without a lot of "disk is dirty" messages (don't know if that is related or not). Any ideas?

[r3ne]

I have the same problem.
What i did without success was

1. type the option 99 on pfsense menu to try to copy Fpsense keeping the changes.

2. ask in this forum (http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,20996.0.html) and was advised to try to mount via serial port (but i don't know how.)

If you want to try my options, maybe you're luckier.

Any other idea?

[jimp]

I don't have a CF to SATA converter to try this on, but those slices/partitions look way off.

It should have:

ad0
ad0s1
ad0s1a
ad0s1c
ad0s2
ad0s2a
ad0s2c
ad0s3

[trentdk]

Thanks for the info Jimp!

I'm using physdiskwrite to write this image http://files.chi.pfsense.org/mirror/downloads/pfSense-1.2.3-RELEASE-4g-nanobsd.img.gz

I wonder if there is some sort of corruption happening when I write the embedded image… I'm writing the image using a multi-flash card reader on my windows pc, and then transferring that CF card to the CF-SATA adaptor in the 'router'. When I get back to the house, I'll try installing the CF-SATA adaptor in the PC, writing the image, and then move the whole thing over to the 'router'.

[jimp]

Make sure you decompress the image first using something like 7-zip so you are only writing the .img file

You may also try using Physgui+Physdiskwrite

If all else fails, try the 2GB image. Your card may be slightly too small to fit the full 4GB image, in testing we found several cards that were undersized, but the current crop of images should have been sized low enough to fit on most.