BTX Loader hang with ICH6R in RAID mode

[John Baldwin]

On Tuesday, March 27, 2012 3:08:41 am Mark Kane wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I've got a Supermicro P8SC8 board with an ICH6R SATA controller and am
> trying to install FreeBSD on a RAID1 on this controller. Booting
> FreeBSD 9, 8, 7, or 6 i386 disc1 when the controller is in RAID mode
> results in a hang at the BTX loader:
> 
> -------------------------------------
> Boot from CD :
> CD Loader 1.2
> 
> Building the boot loader arguments
> Looking up /BOOT/LOADER... Found
> Relocating the loader and the BTX
> Starting the BTX loader
> 
> BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.08
> Consoles: internal video/keyboard
> BIOS CD is cd0
> _  (continues to blink indefinitely)
> -------------------------------------
> 
> If the SATA mode is set to IDE instead of RAID in the BIOS, it boots
> normally with no problem. I've also tried disabling ACPI as a test but
> there was no change.
> 
> Any suggestions on what else to try would be much appreciated.
> Unfortunately the box is remote and it takes quite a bit of
> time/expense for remote hands to power cycle the machine or swap discs
> after each attempt.
> 
> Thanks in advance!

Hmm, these things are generally not very easy to debug, esp. remotely. :(

It sounds like your BIOS is doing something unusual and that is why BTX
hangs.  Are you able to PXE boot this box from another machine to install it?

-- 
John Baldwin