2.8.2 UEFI boot fails immediately after install

[clarknova]

Dell R330
pfsense 2.8.1
PERC in passthrough mode, 2x SSD

I booted the installer from virtual optical drive / ISO, no problem. The installer ran and I chose ZFS mirror with both SSDs, GPT mode. Once the installer finished I was prompted to reboot. Now the Dell's UEFI loader sees a 'pfsense' option, but fails to boot from it.

I also tried to boot from file and pointed it to both /efi/boot/bootx64.efi and /efi/freebsd/loader.efi, but in both cases it still fails to boot.

What do I need to do differently in the installer or EFI settings to get this fresh install to boot?
/tmp/Screenshot from 2026-05-05 16-16-38.png

[SteveITS]

@clarknova I’m not familiar with the hardware but if using ZFS mirror I’d expect not to see a hardware RAID controller reference. Can you disable that and set it to AHCI or JBOD mode so they are individual disks?

[clarknova]

@SteveITS
Yes, the firmware's choice of words is unfortunate and misleading, as they still refer to it as a RAID controller, even when it's in HBA mode, which this one is (I clicked the last option and rebooted before running the installer).
/tmp/Screenshot from 2026-05-05 18-16-21.png

This is how I set up my disks:
/tmp/Screenshot from 2026-05-05 18-23-01.png

The installation then proceeds and I'm prompted to reboot. I ran the installer for a second time just now using all the same parameters so I could group the screen captures. The result is the same: the firmware attempts to boot from the pfSense boot entry and fails.

I will try putting the RAID controller back in RAID mode and create a single mirrored virtual device to present to pfSense. It's not ideal, but if it works I'll have to call it good.

[Nitsuj19]

@clarknova

I am not well versed with the hardware but the controller in HBA mode, what happens if you switch the default boot drive?

[mvikman]

Maybe Dell PERC-controllers still need "hw.mfi.mrsas_enable" to work...?

https://forum.netgate.com/topic/184640/mfi0-i-o-error-as-soon-as-the-installation-starts-need-to-use-mrsas-driver-instead-mfi-how-to-do-that-please

[clarknova]

@mvikman
Yes! That was the fix. Thanks for the hint.