Asus AT5NM10-I MiniITX + Lycom 137F CompactFlash to SATA adapter = BTX Halted

kooby

Hey guys,

I threw together a small system today with the following parts:

Asus AT5NM10-I MiniITX
Lycom 137F CompactFlash to Sata adapter
Intel Gigabit NIC (GT I think)
4GB CF Card

I am receiving 'BTX halted' on boot. Should I replace the CF adapter + CF card with a hard disk and test? I have switched from IDE to AHCI in the bios which has not made any difference.

Maybe there's a beta CF image I can use?

Thank You,

Kooby.

wallabybob

What did you put on the CF card? How did you put it there?

kooby

I followed the instructions on the website to load the CF version. Used the Windows tool to do it. I then tried to install it via CD and it's presented me with a different error saying it can't load the kernel. Looks like the Lycom 137F adapter or the CF card itself isn't being liked by nanobsd.

wallabybob

That motherboard and its chipset are both probably new enough to have not been tested against the FreeBSD in pfSense 1.2.3 so I'd be inclined to test a pfSense 2.0 BETA snapshot build. (pfSense 2.0 includes a later version of FreeBSD than is used in pfSense 1.2.3.)

When you burnt the CD did you just put the .img file on the CD or did you burn it to the CD as a disk image? (If the former then the CD is probably not bootable.) Did you verify the md5sum of the CD image you downloaded? Does the CD boot on another system?

Once you have used md5sum to verify the CD image was downloaded correctly and you have a CD that boots on another system to the pfSense installer I would reset the disk controller in the BIOS from AHCI to IDE (more likely to work) then try to boot that CD. If it fails, please give the last 4 or 5 lines on the screen. (Attention to detail in reporting can help get you a solution much more quickly than if we have to keep asking for it. In this case, a boot failure could be reported by the BIOS or the FreeBSD basic boot loader or the FreeBSD loader. Providing a few lines copied from the screen can more quickly identify which component is reporting the failure and so eliminate a number of possible causes of the failure.)

dreamslacker

@kooby:

I followed the instructions on the website to load the CF version. Used the Windows tool to do it. I then tried to install it via CD and it's presented me with a different error saying it can't load the kernel. Looks like the Lycom 137F adapter or the CF card itself isn't being liked by nanobsd.

The NanoBSD build uses a serial terminal for configuration. You need another computer with a serial port and a terminal program like putty to configure the unit. Hook up the 2 computers via a NULL modem cable and set the terminal program to 9600/8/N/1.

Right after the BTX loader prompt, pfSense will switch the output to serial console.

kooby

Thank You for your responses gents.

CF card experiences:

After using the correct 4G image it did book correctly from the CF card. My mistake was in thinking that the 1 GB image would work on the 4GB card. Although I did not know that I needed to use a serial cable, I don't have one lying around as it has been a while.

CD experiences:

When burning the CD I burnt it correctly. It booted and let me install to the CF card however after removing the disk and rebooting it couldn't find the kernel. I then switched to a SATA hard disk and it worked fine.

In conclusion, when I get/find a serial cable I will probably try the 4G image again and give it another go. It is currently working fine with the hard disk. If you have a hardware support list I can confirm that the Asus AT5NM10-I most definitely works from a hard disk and will more than likely work with a CF card.

Thank You again gentlemen.

dreamslacker

@kooby:

Thank You for your responses gents.

CF card experiences:

After using the correct 4G image it did book correctly from the CF card. My mistake was in thinking that the 1 GB image would work on the 4GB card. Although I did not know that I needed to use a serial cable, I don't have one lying around as it has been a while.

CD experiences:

When burning the CD I burnt it correctly. It booted and let me install to the CF card however after removing the disk and rebooting it couldn't find the kernel. I then switched to a SATA hard disk and it worked fine.

In conclusion, when I get/find a serial cable I will probably try the 4G image again and give it another go. It is currently working fine with the hard disk. If you have a hardware support list I can confirm that the Asus AT5NM10-I most definitely works from a hard disk and will more than likely work with a CF card.

Thank You again gentlemen.

The 1GB image will work with the 4GB card.
You might be having issues with the card being identified as removable. You need to manually re-write the partition table so the card is no longer shown as removable.

This is what you need to do:

1) In windows, open an elevated Command Prompt (Admin priviledges)
2) Type in: Disk Part
3) Type in: List Disk
4) Type in: Select Disk X
(Note: List disk will show all available disks; select the correct drive number here. You can go by capacity. The 4GB CF card is probably going to show up as 3870MB)

5) Type in: Clean
6) Type in: Create Partition Primary
7) Type in: Exit

8) Exit the command prompt and fire up Physdiskwrite GUI and follow the wiki.

brcisna

kooby,

one possibility is the cf card is burned correctly as you have explained, but with the cf card going to a sata interface i wonder if the os thinks the cf card needs an raid adapter driver? this may explain the btx loader halt? what does the cf card show up in the mobo bios? if the mobo happens to have an ide interface and you have an ide to cf adapter give that a shot.. probably don't have a spare adapter though:(.

b

kooby

Thanks guys. My serial shizzle came today and I am going to give it another go.

Unfortunately the board doesn't have any serial ports and my IDE to CF adapter is in use with my current router with a different router software package.

kooby

Okay so I followed the diskpart instructions, used the GUI to write the image however I am back to the BTX halted error on VGA and this is what I got from the serial output:

1   FreeBSD
2   FreeBSD

Boot:   1
/boot.config: -h
Consoles: serial port
BIOS drive C: is disk0
BIOS 639kB/2086528kB available memory

FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(sullrich@FreeBSD_7.2_pfSense_1.2.3_snaps.pfsense.org, Mon Dec  7 23:00:35 EST 2009)
Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf
/boot/kernel/kernel text=0x739788 data=0x13cf6c+0x51c80 /
read failed

elf32_loadimage: failed to read section headers
\
Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt.
Booting [/boot/kernel/kernel]...

kooby

Well I took the CF card and put it into my other much older shuttle that has an old n dusty CF to IDE adapter and it worked a treat. It seems that the CF card version is not a fan of either the AT5NM10-I or the Lycom 137F.

Is there a way to change the melodies by chance? :)

brcisna

I'm a little confused on this now? In your initial post you said you were using an cf-sata adapter. I n the next to last post you said your board has no serial interface?
Try taking your ide-cf reader out of your old timer mobo and hang it in your new board. there is no reason it shouldnt work on your new board providing it has an ide interface?

Also,with this setup,( old timer cf-ide adapter ,with your fresh cf card),dive into the mobo bios and see what it sees your cf card as? Then for kicks unhook and go to your original setup( sata-cf adapter) and see what the difference is in the bios this time.

B

dreamslacker

@kooby:

Well I took the CF card and put it into my other much older shuttle that has an old n dusty CF to IDE adapter and it worked a treat. It seems that the CF card version is not a fan of either the AT5NM10-I or the Lycom 137F.

Is there a way to change the melodies by chance? :)

Have you tried switching the SATA controller settings in BIOS from AHCI to Legacy/ Native mode? If not, try that.

BTW, the serial port on the AT5NM10 is right beside the VGA port.

kooby

@kooby:

Thanks guys. My serial shizzle came today and I am going to give it another go.

Unfortunately the board doesn't have any serial ports and my IDE to CF adapter is in use with my current router with a different router software package.

My bad. Must've been fatigue!

I meant to say that the (Asus AT5NM10-I) board doesn't have any IDE ports. I will give the AHCI-legacy switch another go sometime soon.