Problem Installing to Soekris 6501

[rantech]

I am trying to install pfsense 2.2.4 on a Soekris Net6501 but can't get it going. Used Physical disk write to put the nanoBSD i386 4GB image on an SSD (which was temporarily installed into a desktop computer using a mSATA to SATA adapter).  This appeared to go fine.

I put the SSD in the 6501 but can't get things running.  I get to the pfsense console menu but immediately above the menu is:

"config.xml is corrupted and is 0 bytes. Could not restore a previous backup."

Then if I try to assign interfaces or set interface IP addresses, I get nothing.

I'm very new at this and don't know if this is related to the issue of building the drive on another system that had other drives (as discussed in the thread "https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=42028.15") or not?  If so, I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how to make the changes described in that thread. Anyone able to give me some suggestions ?

thanks

[pvoigt]

I am running pfSense 2.2.4 on a Soekris net6501 from a compact flash disk. I did a fresh NanoBSD installation about 2 years ago.

I can remember various boot errors which were all related to DMA and write caching. I followed these advices: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_Troubleshooting and here in particular what is written under "NanoBSD on Newer Hardware" and all error messages disappeared.

At the time of installation I found this link very helpful: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Soekris_6501_USB_Flash_installation

A shot in the dark:

• Is your mSATA 4 GB? If yes, try a 2 GB image, may be it could not completely be written to your mSATA.

• After boot has finished try to reset your configuration to defaults and try to reboot.

• I all fails, you could try a full installation and see if it gives more hints to possible problems.

Peter

[DickB]

The only way I could get it working was to install 2.1.5 and then do an upgrade to 2.2.4.
(I don't see 2.1.5 in the download list anymore.)
There is something with the disk layout that conflicts with the 6501 bios boot and I haven't seen any solution.