Can't install FreeBSD on Amilo M3438G

[Orestis Papakonstantinou]

Hello everyone,

first of all I am new to this mailing list and I'd like to say hi to
everyone. I recently purchased a new (Fujitsu-Siemens) Amilo M3438G laptop
and I am facing some difficulties in installing FreeBSD on it. I know this
is not a "recommended" laptop to use with FreeBSD because it is considered
more of a "multimedia" laptop rather than a "professional" one and thus it
is destined to work mainly with Microsoft. The main problem I face is with
its built in VIA RAID controller (VT6421). I get a number of LBA read/write
errors. The installation can't find the mount points and though it is
working, it does so with many problems (I/O errors, core dumps etc). I'd
like to get a reply from people having the same laptop (if any), just to
know what they did in order for the FreeBSD to run. Should I send a mail to
VIA for the driver support? Or am I doing a mistake during the installation
(could use a kld module perhaps? or vinum and GEOM correctly configured do
the trick?). Any replies would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.