FreeBSD Handbook
Prev | Chapter 3 Installing FreeBSD 8.`X` and Earlier | Next

# 3.11 Troubleshooting

The following section covers basic installation troubleshooting, such as common problems people have reported. There are also a few questions and answers for people wishing to dual-boot FreeBSD with MS-DOS® or Windows®.

## 3.11.1 What to Do If Something Goes Wrong

Due to various limitations of the PC architecture, it is impossible for probing to be 100% reliable, however, there are a few things you can do if it fails.

Check the Hardware Notes document for your version of FreeBSD to make sure your hardware is supported.

If your hardware is supported and you still experience lock-ups or other problems, you will need to build a custom kernel. This will allow you to add in support for devices which are not present in the `GENERIC` kernel. The kernel on the boot disks is configured assuming that most hardware devices are in their factory default configuration in terms of IRQs, IO addresses, and DMA channels. If your hardware has been reconfigured, you will most likely need to edit the kernel configuration and recompile to tell FreeBSD where to find things.

It is also possible that a probe for a device not present will cause a later probe for another device that is present to fail. In that case, the probes for the conflicting driver(s) should be disabled.

> Note: Some installation problems can be avoided or alleviated by updating the firmware on various hardware components, most notably the motherboard. The motherboard firmware may also be referred to as BIOS and most of the motherboard or computer manufactures have a website where the upgrades and upgrade information may be located.

> Most manufacturers strongly advise against upgrading the motherboard BIOS unless there is a good reason for doing so, which could possibly be a critical update of sorts. The upgrade process can go wrong, causing permanent damage to the BIOS chip.

## 3.11.2 Using MS-DOS® and Windows® File Systems

At this time, FreeBSD does not support file systems compressed with the Double Space™ application. Therefore the file system will need to be uncompressed before FreeBSD can access the data. This can be done by running the Compression Agent located in the Start> Programs > System Tools menu.

FreeBSD can support MS-DOS file systems (sometimes called FAT file systems). The mount_msdosfs(8) command grafts such file systems onto the existing directory hierarchy, allowing the file system's contents to be accessed. The mount_msdosfs(8) program is not usually invoked directly; instead, it is called by the system through a line in `/etc/fstab` or by a call to the mount(8) utility with the appropriate parameters.

A typical line in `/etc/fstab` is:

    /dev/ad0sN  /dos  msdosfs rw  0	0

> Note: The `/dos` directory must already exist for this to work. For details about the format of `/etc/fstab`, see fstab(5).

A typical call to mount(8) for a MS-DOS file system looks like:

    # mount -t msdosfs /dev/ad0s1 /mnt

In this example, the MS-DOS file system is located on the first partition of the primary hard disk. Your situation may be different, check the output from the `dmesg`, and `mount` commands. They should produce enough information to give an idea of the partition layout.

> Note: FreeBSD may number disk slices (that is, MS-DOS partitions) differently than other operating systems. In particular, extended MS-DOS partitions are usually given higher slice numbers than primary MS-DOS partitions. The fdisk(8) utility can help determine which slices belong to FreeBSD and which belong to other operating systems.

NTFS partitions can also be mounted in a similar manner using the mount_ntfs(8) command.

## 3.11.3 Troubleshooting Questions and Answers

3.11.3.1. My system hangs while probing hardware during boot, or it behaves strangely during install, or the floppy drive is not probed.
3.11.3.2. I go to boot from the hard disk for the first time after installing FreeBSD, the kernel loads and probes my hardware, but stops with messages like:
3.11.3.3. I go to boot from the hard disk for the first time after installing FreeBSD, but the Boot Manager prompt just prints `F?` at the boot menu each time but the boot will not go any further.
3.11.3.4. The system finds my ed(4) network card, but I keep getting device timeout errors.
3.11.3.5.

3.11.3.1. My system hangs while probing hardware during boot, or it behaves strangely during install, or the floppy drive is not probed.

FreeBSD makes extensive use of the system ACPI service on the i386, amd64 and ia64 platforms to aid in system configuration if it is detected during boot. Unfortunately, some bugs still exist in both the ACPI driver and within system motherboards and BIOS. The use of ACPI can be disabled by setting the `hint.acpi.0.disabled` hint in the third stage boot loader:

    set hint.acpi.0.disabled="1"

This is reset each time the system is booted, so it is necessary to add `hint.acpi.0.disabled="1"` to the file `/boot/loader.conf`. More information about the boot loader can be found in Section 13.1.

3.11.3.2. I go to boot from the hard disk for the first time after installing FreeBSD, the kernel loads and probes my hardware, but stops with messages like:

    changing root device to ad1s1a panic: cannot mount root

What is wrong? What can I do?

What is this `bios_drive:interface(unit,partition)kernel_name` thing that is displayed with the boot help?

There is a longstanding problem in the case where the boot disk is not the first disk in the system. The BIOS uses a different numbering scheme to FreeBSD, and working out which numbers correspond to which is difficult to get right.

In the case where the boot disk is not the first disk in the system, FreeBSD can need some help finding it. There are two common situations here, and in both of these cases, you need to tell FreeBSD where the root filesystem is. You do this by specifying the BIOS disk number, the disk type and the FreeBSD disk number for that type.

The first situation is where you have two IDE disks, each configured as the master on their respective IDE busses, and wish to boot FreeBSD from the second disk. The BIOS sees these as disk 0 and disk 1, while FreeBSD sees them as `ad0` and `ad2`.

FreeBSD is on BIOS disk 1, of type `ad` and the FreeBSD disk number is 2, so you would say:

    1:ad(2,a)kernel

Note that if you have a slave on the primary bus, the above is not necessary (and is effectively wrong).

The second situation involves booting from a SCSI disk when you have one or more IDE disks in the system. In this case, the FreeBSD disk number is lower than the BIOS disk number. If you have two IDE disks as well as the SCSI disk, the SCSI disk is BIOS disk 2, type `da` and FreeBSD disk number 0, so you would say:

    2:da(0,a)kernel

To tell FreeBSD that you want to boot from BIOS disk 2, which is the first SCSI disk in the system. If you only had one IDE disk, you would use `1:` instead.

Once you have determined the correct values to use, you can put the command exactly as you would have typed it in the `/boot.config` file using a standard text editor. Unless instructed otherwise, FreeBSD will use the contents of this file as the default response to the `boot:` prompt.

3.11.3.3. I go to boot from the hard disk for the first time after installing FreeBSD, but the Boot Manager prompt just prints `F?` at the boot menu each time but the boot will not go any further.

The hard disk geometry was set incorrectly in the partition editor when you installed FreeBSD. Go back into the partition editor and specify the actual geometry of your hard disk. You must reinstall FreeBSD again from the beginning with the correct geometry.

If you are failing entirely in figuring out the correct geometry for your machine, here is a tip: Install a small MS-DOS partition at the beginning of the disk and install FreeBSD after that. The install program will see the MS-DOS partition and try to infer the correct geometry from it, which usually works.

The following tip is no longer recommended, but is left here for reference:

> If you are setting up a truly dedicated FreeBSD server or workstation where you do not care for (future) compatibility with MS-DOS, Linux or another operating system, you also have got the option to use the entire disk (A in the partition editor), selecting the non-standard option where FreeBSD occupies the entire disk from the very first to the very last sector. This will leave all geometry considerations aside, but is somewhat limiting unless you're never going to run anything other than FreeBSD on a disk.

3.11.3.4. The system finds my ed(4) network card, but I keep getting device timeout errors.

Your card is probably on a different IRQ from what is specified in the `/boot/device.hints` file. The ed(4) driver does not use the “soft” configuration by default (values entered using EZSETUP in MS-DOS), but it will use the software configuration if you specify `-1` in the hints for the interface.

Either move the jumper on the card to a hard configuration setting (altering the kernel settings if necessary), or specify the IRQ as `-1` by setting the hint `hint.ed.0.irq="-1"`. This will tell the kernel to use the soft configuration.

Another possibility is that your card is at IRQ 9, which is shared by IRQ 2 and frequently a cause of problems (especially when you have a VGA card using IRQ 2!). You should not use IRQ 2 or 9 if at all possible.

3.11.3.5.

When sysinstall is used in an X11 terminal, the yellow font is difficult to read against the light gray background. Is there a way to provide higher contrast for this application?

If you already have X11 installed and the default colors chosen by sysinstall make text illegible while using xterm(1) or rxvt(1), add the following to your `~/.Xdefaults` to get a darker background gray: `XTerm*color7: #c0c0c0`

Prev | Home | Next
Post-installation | Up | Advanced Installation Guide