Acer Travelmate 8371 bricked by installing FreeBSD?

[Uffe Jakobsen]

On 11/11/10 23.29, Markus Hoenicka wrote:
> Uffe Jakobsen writes:
>   >  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
>
> Well, beastie finally came alive again :-) This was exactly the way to
> go, and with Warren's hint about how the HDD lid is attached I managed
> to sneak into the BIOS again. With the HDD set to IDE mode, FreeBSD
> would boot without a hitch. Anyway, I reinstalled the system, this
> time using the standard boot manager, to make sure this setting was
> all it takes. The second install would also boot just fine, so now I'm
> all set to work out the remaining issues. I'll probably have to tap
> into your ingenuity again, but I'll do so in a separate thread.
 >


I'm happy to hear that your system is alive again :-)


>   >
>   >  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...
>   >
>
> I can't add much information here either. However, with the HDD mode
> set to IDE it does not matter which boot loader you use. Both the
> standard loader and the FreeBSD loader work fine.
>

Ok, I guess it is up to one of us to see if the std mbr/bootloader has a 
problem with running in sata ahci mode - and report it if that's the case.

When I finally found the workaround - I stopped expierimenting with my 
Acer Aspire since the internal sata plastic ribbon cable is quite thin 
and fragile - and frankly does not look as if it can stand that much 
messing around with disk swaps etc...

/Uffe