Problems with FreeBSD installation

[Mel Flynn]

On Wednesday 05 August 2009 13:01:30 Miguel wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been trying to install FreeBSD in my laptop, but without success.  I
> started with 7.2, but during installation i got the error:
>
>   "No disk found!  Please verify that your disk controller..."
>
> Looking at the logs, everything seems fine to me (although its my first
> time on the FreeBSD world).  I get lines such as:
>
> atapci0: <ATI IXP600 SATA300 controller> [...]
> atapci0: [ITHREAD]
> atapci0: AHCI Version 01.10 controller with 4 ports detected
> ata2: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
> ata2: [ITHREAD]
> ata3: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
> ata3: [ITHREAD]
> ata4: <ATA channel 2> on atapci0
> ata4: [ITHREAD]
> ata5: <ATA channel 3> on atapci0
> ata5: [ITHREAD]
> [...]
> atapci1: <ATI IPX600 UDMA 133 controller> [...]
> ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci1
> ata0: [ITHREAD]
> [...]
>
> (Note that i wrote these logs manually -- got some photos that I can upload
> to some URL if needed.)
>
> So, could not find any issues in the logs, apart from some ACPI errors:
>
> acpi0_check: nexus0 attached
> acpi0_check: acpi0 not-present
> acpi0_check: acpi0 not-present
> acpi0_check: acpi0 not-present
> acpi0_check: acpi0 not-present
> ...
>
> in fact, I have some other ACPI-related errors at the beginning of the
> logs, but these are common also on Linux -- I believe these are due to a
> buggy BIOS, which unfortunately I am not able to upgrade since I have not
> windows installed (I have a Toshiba Satellite A210).
>
> Anyway, I decided to try a more recent version of FreeBSD and downloaded
>
>   8.0-CURRENT-200906-amd64-disc1.iso
>
> which was the most recent snapshot for my Turion64 processor.
>
> Tried to boot it but this time the installation just freeze before the
> install application event starts.  Last log lines are:
>
> acpi0: Could not initialise SystemIO handler: AE_NOT_EXIST
> device_attach: acpi0 attach returned 6
> Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec
> md0: Preload image </boot/mfsroot> 4194304 bytes at 0xffffffff80fd8660
> SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
> WARNING: WITNESS option enabled, expect reduced performance.
> Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/md0
> warning: no time-of-day clock registered, system time will not be set
> accurately
>
> And at this point... nothing else -- system freezes.
>
> Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions for me to have a FreeBSD
> installation on my laptop.  I am, of course, available to provide any
> additional information you might need to debug the issue.

Your best bet is to poll the mobile list (CC'd) to see if anyone was able to 
get FreeBSD working on this laptop (or even to know whether this is a lost 
cause till somebody makes some patches for this laptop). Since 7.2 also does 
not work and with 8.0-RELEASE being in it's final stages, it's unlikely you 
can get some priority from the developers for it being a regression bug. The 
acpi and missing disk can be related (most likely are), but unless you get at 
least a live FS working (even the USB image for 8.0-BETA2) it will be hard to 
get an acpidump(8). So this really depends on "someone knowledgeable having 
this laptop" or BIOS tricks that get you to a stage where more info can be 
gathered and saved/snapshot.
-- 
Mel