Acer Travelmate 8371 bricked by installing FreeBSD?

[Uffe Jakobsen]

On 11/11/10 14.43, Markus Hoenicka wrote:
>
> I wonder if that would work if I changed the BIOS accordingly *before*
> installing the OS.

Like you - I did not see this problem before installing FBSD and them it 
was too late for me

After FBSD install I could not boot or get into the bios and change the 
SATA emu-mode setting - that is where the removal of the disk is needed 
- since this will enable you to get past that hanging bios point and get 
into the bios setup again

I believe that *IF* I'd changed the mentioned setting before installing 
FBSD the (hanging bios) problem would never have occoured.

> I loathe removing the HDD as I'm not exactly sure
> how to get it out without damaging the case - removing the two obvious
> screws was not enough to remove the HDD lid. Damaging the case will
> make it hard to return the laptop (I can return it within 14 days of
> purchase).

hmmm I see - I did try to see if it would boot from external usb floppy, 
usb cdrom or usb memory stick - but it did not seem to get that far into 
the bios startup...

>
> Also, did you notice any performance problems after changing this setting?
>

No not really - I still use this setting - if I change it back to AHCI 
and reboot it will start "hanging" again - and then the only way to get 
back into the bios setup again it the disk removal-trick...

>>
>> Question: did you install the FBSD BootManager or just a std MBR ?
>>
>
> I did, because I use it also on multi-boot boxes. Come to think of it,
> it doesn't really make sense on this laptop though. Does your question
> imply that the FreeBSD boot manager may screw up things sufficiently
> to make booting impossible?
>

I have no proof at this point - but I suspect the FBSD BootManager to be 
the one to blame when used in combination with the ahci sata emulation 
setting... but I'm by no means an expert in these things - and I did 
never get to the bottom of the problem...


/Uffe