Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 7:16 PM, Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com wrote: Today I encountered a problem which has me stumped. I downloaded and burned the ISO image for 9.0-RELEASE for amd64. I installed an older IDE hard drive to test the new OS with and did the install. ... Well the install finished and then I attempted to reboot the system but nothing happened. And by that I mean the computer's flash screen would come up and give me the choice to enter the Bios Setup or Boot Menu and that's all. I could not enter the bios setup or the Boot menu. ... So basically, FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE bricked an otherwise good 80GB hard drive and I can't seem to recover it. Hi Bill, What was going on with this drive before the install? ie, it was sitting on the self not being used, it was a daily use machine running something else, ... etc. At the moment it sounds to me like an inconvenient hardware failure. Waitman ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
From: Waitman Gobble gobble...@gmail.com To: Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com Cc: FreeBSD Questions freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Sent: Friday, January 6, 2012 5:09 AM Subject: Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 7:16 PM, Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com wrote: Today I encountered a problem which has me stumped. I downloaded and burned the ISO image for 9.0-RELEASE for amd64. I installed an older IDE hard drive to test the new OS with and did the install. ... Well the install finished and then I attempted to reboot the system but nothing happened. And by that I mean the computer's flash screen would come up and give me the choice to enter the Bios Setup or Boot Menu and that's all. I could not enter the bios setup or the Boot menu. ... So basically, FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE bricked an otherwise good 80GB hard drive and I can't seem to recover it. Hi Bill, What was going on with this drive before the install? ie, it was sitting on the self not being used, it was a daily use machine running something else, ... etc. At the moment it sounds to me like an inconvenient hardware failure. Waitman ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org I had been running a similar computer with Windows XP with it. The drive was working fine a few moments before I did the install. I have a utility to test hard drives which boots from CD but like I said, when this drive is on a cable connected to any machine, booting is a non-option. I have an old IDE controller but it's ISA and I have not ISA slots on this computer. Looks like I may have to try the USB drive boot option to get on with this rescue. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 3:21 AM, Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com wrote: I had been running a similar computer with Windows XP with it. The drive was working fine a few moments before I did the install. I have a utility to test hard drives which boots from CD but like I said, when this drive is on a cable connected to any machine, booting is a non-option. I have an old IDE controller but it's ISA and I have not ISA slots on this computer. Looks like I may have to try the USB drive boot option to get on with this rescue. Weirdness.. ok, i was wondering - you said you installed an old drive to check it out, and I was thinking hmm 80gb, maybe setting on the shelf for a decade :) I do recall having a similar issue with a drive, but it was years and years ago- my memory hazed, and not necessarily (probably not) related to FreeBSD install. If you aren't getting POST then it sounds hardware related to me. Good Luck, Waitman ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Bill Tillman wrote: Well the install finished and then I attempted to reboot the system but nothing happened. And by that I mean the computer's flash screen would come up and give me the choice to enter the Bios Setup or Boot Menu and that's all. The BIOS on some systems expects a particular partition layout. In the old days, Compaq had a BIOS partition on the disk. Today, there are there are still weird things that can be vendor-specific. Or new standards like UEFI. So the problem could be specific to that particular computer model or brand. Attaching the drive to a USB to IDE adapter might avoid the problem, allowing a boot from another drive. Before rewriting the do-nothing drive, use 'gpart show' or fdisk to see the partition layout that is the problem. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
El día Friday, January 06, 2012 a las 06:37:02AM -0800, Waitman Gobble escribió: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 3:21 AM, Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com wrote: I had been running a similar computer with Windows XP with it. The drive was working fine a few moments before I did the install. I have a utility to test hard drives which boots from CD but like I said, when this drive is on a cable connected to any machine, booting is a non-option. I have an old IDE controller but it's ISA and I have not ISA slots on this computer. Looks like I may have to try the USB drive boot option to get on with this rescue. It seems that there are BIOS features which need to have access to certain sectors of the disk with additional (Winblows) software. Once you format the entire disk for FreeBSD you will not enter the BIOS dialogue, nor it will boot anymore; google for a thread of FreeBSD installation on Acer laptops. HIH matthias -- Matthias Apitz t +49-89-61308 351 - f +49-89-61308 399 - m +49-170-4527211 e g...@unixarea.de - w http://www.unixarea.de/ UNIX since V7 on PDP-11 | UNIX on mainframe since ESER 1055 (IBM /370) UNIX on x86 since SVR4.2 UnixWare 2.1.2 | FreeBSD since 2.2.5 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
acer ?? i had this with acer.. remove hdd...acess bios change ahci mode and try installing again. On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 8:16 PM, Matthias Apitz g...@unixarea.de wrote: El día Friday, January 06, 2012 a las 06:37:02AM -0800, Waitman Gobble escribió: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 3:21 AM, Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com wrote: I had been running a similar computer with Windows XP with it. The drive was working fine a few moments before I did the install. I have a utility to test hard drives which boots from CD but like I said, when this drive is on a cable connected to any machine, booting is a non-option. I have an old IDE controller but it's ISA and I have not ISA slots on this computer. Looks like I may have to try the USB drive boot option to get on with this rescue. It seems that there are BIOS features which need to have access to certain sectors of the disk with additional (Winblows) software. Once you format the entire disk for FreeBSD you will not enter the BIOS dialogue, nor it will boot anymore; google for a thread of FreeBSD installation on Acer laptops. HIH matthias -- Matthias Apitz t +49-89-61308 351 - f +49-89-61308 399 - m +49-170-4527211 e g...@unixarea.de - w http://www.unixarea.de/ UNIX since V7 on PDP-11 | UNIX on mainframe since ESER 1055 (IBM /370) UNIX on x86 since SVR4.2 UnixWare 2.1.2 | FreeBSD since 2.2.5 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org -- Best Regards, Mubeesh Ali.V.M ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
On 5 January 2012 22:16, Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com wrote: ... then I attempted to reboot the system but nothing happened. And by that I mean the computer's flash screen would come up and give me the choice to enter the Bios Setup or Boot Menu and that's all. I could not enter the bios setup or the Boot menu. The keyboard was still responding as I could press the CapLock key and toggle the light on and off, but outside of that the computer would not boot. On the advice of some of the techs in #FreeBSD channel I moved the drive over to another computer which was working fine, and the same thing happened. The computer would start up, show me the flash screen to do the Bios setup and then nothing. I put the other drive back in and it worked fine. I tried another computer and the results were the same. Now it gets really wierd. I thought that I could just make this IDE drive a slave and boot with another drive and cleanup the mess. But no matter which computer I chose, and no matter how I setup the Slave/Master drive, as long as this drive which I had installed FreeBSD-9.0-amd64 was in the loop, the computer would lockup at the bios screen. I could not get anything to boot if this drive was in the loop. If I removed it everything was fine. So basically, FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE bricked an otherwise good 80GB hard drive and I can't seem to recover it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have an old IDE-USB adapter that I think I picked up for $15 a few years ago. (amazon has them for that right now http://amzn.to/xfyeOW Your local Beast Buy or MicroSinter may have such as well the newer once seem to all have eSATA ports too) Silly things like that come in handy once in a great while. Though you may have that rare case when your HDD's board cooked itself for some reason. -- -- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
Waitman Gobble wrote: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 3:21 AM, Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com wrote: I had been running a similar computer with Windows XP with it. The drive was working fine a few moments before I did the install. I have a utility to test hard drives which boots from CD but like I said, when this drive is on a cable connected to any machine, booting is a non-option. I have an old IDE controller but it's ISA and I have not ISA slots on this computer. Looks like I may have to try the USB drive boot option to get on with this rescue. Weirdness.. ok, i was wondering - you said you installed an old drive to check it out, and I was thinking hmm 80gb, maybe setting on the shelf for a decade :) I do recall having a similar issue with a drive, but it was years and years ago- my memory hazed, and not necessarily (probably not) related to FreeBSD install. If you aren't getting POST then it sounds hardware related to me. Good Luck, Waitman ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org Aloha, I had this happen with using [Cable Select] on an 80G ISA drive jumper and after I switched to [Master] it worked fine. In any case it does sound like hardware. Try switching the cable. It may be broken. -- ~Al Plant - Honolulu, Hawaii - Phone: 808-284-2740 + http://hawaiidakine.com + http://freebsdinfo.org + + http://aloha50.net - Supporting - FreeBSD 7.2 - 8.0 - 9* + email: n...@hdk5.net All that's really worth doing is what we do for others.- Lewis Carrol ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
Bill Tillman wrote: Today I encountered a problem which has me stumped. I downloaded and burned the ISO image for 9.0-RELEASE for amd64. I installed an older IDE hard drive to test the new OS with and did the install. I was very surprised at the (1) the dvd is actually a live CD if you wanted it to be and (2) the installers screens have all been revamped. I can't say for sure if the partitioning part was where it went south on me because I was attempting to setup some additional partitions but the input screens had me confused and I pressed Auto so it took off and made the default paritions. The computer would start up, show me the flash screen to do the Bios setup and then nothing. I put the other drive back in and it worked fine. I tried another computer and the results were the same. snip This is a known problem with bsdinstall in 9.0. Newer pc's have bios that use gpart format disk partition layouts (IE windows7) so for FreeBSD to be compatible with new PC hardware, Bsdinstall defaults to using the gpart format disk partition layouts. Bsdinstall provides no automatic way to create (mbr, Dos) format partitions. The user is suppose to know before installing 9.0 that their pc hardware requires (mbr, Dos) format partitions and instead of using the automatic gpart format disk partition layouts they must select the manual option which opens a shell where the installer must enter the native commands to create the (mbr, Dos) format partitions like sysinstall did in 8.2 and older releases. This puts a unfair burden on users to know beforehand whether their pc bios are gpart aware. Bsdinstall provides no displayed information informing the user of what they need to know about their equipment before selecting the disk format to use. I believe this user is just the tip of the iceberg of users installing 9.0 on older hardware. At this time the only way to automate the creation of the (mbr, Dos) format partitions using the 9.0 bsdinstall is to select the manual option in the disk config screen and them launch sade, this is the disk configuration dialog from sysinstall that has been turned into a standalone utility. If you think sade should be made a option of the bsdinstall disk config dialog then post your comments here and cc to nwhiteh...@freebsd.org the author of bsdinstall. The bsdinstall has absolutely no built in HELP, But there is some new documentation in the online freebsd manual. http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/bsdinstall.html It's under constant revision so it may not be totally accurate, but it will provide you some insight to your disk config problems. Note: before you can use that gpart disk to create mbr you have to delete the (crap) gpart writes at the end of the physical disk. This script works great to do that. http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html After running the script, then on same disk pc install 8.2 and reboot. If it boots fine then you know for sure your pc bios is not gpart aware, and you will always have to use mbr disk format on that pc hardware combination. The SADE utility will become your long time friend. Good luck. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
On Jan 5, 2012, at 7:16 PM, Bill Tillman wrote: Today I encountered a problem which has me stumped. I downloaded and burned the ISO image for 9.0-RELEASE for amd64. I installed an older IDE hard drive to test the new OS with and did the install. I was very surprised at the (1) the dvd is actually a live CD if you wanted it to be and (2) the installers screens have all been revamped. I can't say for sure if the partitioning part was where it went south on me because I was attempting to setup some additional partitions but the input screens had me confused and I pressed Auto so it took off and made the default paritions. I thought cool, I'll let the install finish and check things out then reinstall later with the partition setup I wanted. Well the install finished and then I attempted to reboot the system but nothing happened. And by that I mean the computer's flash screen would come up and give me the choice to enter the Bios Setup or Boot Menu and that's all. I could not enter the bios setup or the Boot menu. The keyboard was still responding as I could press the CapLock key and toggle the light on and off, but outside of that the computer would not boot. On the advice of some of the techs in #FreeBSD channel I moved the drive over to another computer which was working fine, and the same thing happened. The computer would start up, show me the flash screen to do the Bios setup and then nothing. I put the other drive back in and it worked fine. I tried another computer and the results were the same. Now it gets really wierd. I thought that I could just make this IDE drive a slave and boot with another drive and cleanup the mess. But no matter which computer I chose, and no matter how I setup the Slave/Master drive, as long as this drive which I had installed FreeBSD-9.0-amd64 was in the loop, the computer would lockup at the bios screen. I could not get anything to boot if this drive was in the loop. If I removed it everything was fine. So basically, FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE bricked an otherwise good 80GB hard drive and I can't seem to recover it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Can you get into the BIOS of the original machine *while the bad drive is disconnected* ? If so, I'd try changing the boot options in the BIOS to boot from something like external USB but not from IDE. You'll want to find settings that are geared towards totally eliminating the possibility that the BIOS will scan the drive as a boot device. Depending on your BIOS settings, this may involve changing the Boot Order to not include IDE (or ATA), or if you find it as a numbered boot device, disabling that numbered device (e.g. you see Boot Device 2 and it says IDE, see if it offers Disabled as an option). If you can successfully change your boot options in the BIOS to not scan the IDE channels, ... remember, the drive is still not connected at this point ... then you should be able to connect the drive and get the same result -- the BIOS will tell you there's no bootable devices attached (as you've, hopefully, been able to disable that source of devices from the list of those probed/scanned). At this point, you now need to find something other than IDE to boot from (as you've now disabled that type of device -- including CD/ROM). Hopefully your system is new enough to boot from USB media. Grab DruidBSD Tools disk on another (working) machine ... http://sourceforge.net/projects/druidbsd/files/Druid-0.0.iso/download Descriptions here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/druidbsd/files/ Get yourself a USB thumb drive. NOTE: Say goodbye to what's currently on your thumb drive -- make backups to another machine before you do this. 1. Execute before you attach your thumb drive: sysctl kern.disks 2. Insert thumb drive 3. Execute after you've attached the thumb drive: sysctl kern.disks 4. Identify the newly-available da# device 5. Execute (replacing da# with the appropriate device name) as root (or sudo(8)): dd if=Druid-0.0.iso of=/dev/da# bs=512k conv=sync HINT: You can press Ctrl-T while it's writing the ISO file to the thumb drive to get a (somewhat) helpful progress indication. When finished, you can use your USB thumb drive to do all sorts of rescue-work, including wiping the bad drive with Darik's Boot and Nuke (lol) -- used for secure government wipes -- or Active (R) Kill Disk Free Edition, both on the disk linked-to above. There's also Seagate Disk Utilities, which some of our field engineers found useful (I think it-too has a disk-wiper). -- Devin _ The information contained in this message is proprietary and/or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please: (i) delete the message and all copies; (ii) do not disclose, distribute or use the message in any manner; and (iii) notify the sender immediately. In addition, please be aware that any message addressed to our domain is subject to archiving and review by persons
Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive
Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com wrote: ... no matter which computer I chose, and no matter how I setup the Slave/Master drive, as long as this drive which I had installed FreeBSD-9.0-amd64 was in the loop, the computer would lockup at the bios screen. I could not get anything to boot if this drive was in the loop. If you have an oldish machine with a spare PCI slot, you could try plugging in a PCI-IDE controller card and connect the drive to that. Many of the older BIOS won't look for drives on add-in controllers. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
