new 6.1 install will not boot

[Greg Barniskis]

Perry Hutchison wrote:
>> Recommend you get a [bigger|second] disk if you can though,
>> or housecleaning will be a constant chore.
> 
> I got it more or less working, although not completely set up, and
> then that 10GB disk died:  click -- kerthunk -- click -- kerthunk
> continuously, even after cycling power, even with only the power
> connected :(
> 
> After replacing it with a 160GB Hitachi, and reinstalling Windoze,
> Linux, and FreeBSD (in that order, as before), I seem to be back at
> square one -- FreeBSD won't boot -- but the details are different.
> Partition Commander now has:
> 
>   Ptn    size   ----- type -----  1st sector  # of sectors
>   P0     250M   FAT32      0x0B          63        514017
>   P1       7M   Linux ext2 0x83      514080         16065
>   P2   41.99G   Unix       0xA5      530145      88068330
>   P3   85.75G   Extended   0x0F    88598475     179831610
>    L0   43.75G   FAT32      0x0B    88598538      91763217
>    L1     400M   Linux swap 0x82   180361818        819252
>    L2   41.60G   Linux ext2 0x83   181181133      87248952
> 
> Sysinstall had not commented about the geometry with the 10GB disk,
> but it did this time; and as suggested I let it do what it wanted.
> The Dell BIOS will not tell me what it thinks the geometry is -- it
> just says the drive is EIDE -- so I have no direct way of verifying
> sysinstall's geometry; however the first BIOS partition is a
> working FAT32 and per the instructions that "should" be enough for
> sysinstall to have gotten it right.  (The second BIOS partition is
> a Linux /boot, which also works.)
> 
> The install appeared to succeed, and the FreeBSD boot manager does
> successfully boot Windoze and Linux, but all attempts to boot FreeBSD
> from the hard disk fail.
> 
> The following was transcribed by hand, so there might be some typos;
> and I've added some notes to the right of the lsdev output.  I've
> also confirmed, using the loader's "ls", that there is no visible
> file named 'kernel' in the root directory, nor anywhere under /boot,
> /rescue, or /sbin.  Where is it supposed to come from, and how do
> I get it where it needs to be without reinstalling the whole thing
> *yet again*?
> 
> ====================================================================
> 
> 
> F1   DOS
> F2   Linux
> F3   FreeBSD
> 
> Default: F3
> 
> BTX loader 1.00  BTX version is 1.01
> Consoles: internal video/keyboard
> BIOS drive A: is disk0
> BIOS drive C: is disk1
> BIOS 640kB/195584kB available memory
> acpi: bad RSDP checksum (210)
> 
> FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
> (root at opus.cse.buffalo.edu, Sun May  7 03:20:03 UTC 2006)
> Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf
> Unable to load a kernel!
> /
> can't load 'kernel'
> 
> Type '?' for a list of commands, 'help' for more detailed help.
> OK lsdev
> cd devices:
> disk devices:
>     disk0: BIOS drive A:
>     disk1: BIOS drive C:
>       disk1s1: FAT32              # C:
>       disk1s2: ext2fs             # Linux /boot
>         disk1s3a: FFS             # FreeBSD /
>         disk1s3b: swap
>         disk1s3d: FFS             # FreeBSD /var
>         disk1s3e: FFS             # FreeBSD /tmp
>         disk1s3f: FFS             # FreeBSD /usr
>       disk1s4: Unknown fs: 0xf    # contains FAT32 D:, Linux swap and /
> pxe devicde:
> OK

Well, you're at least as far as having the disk sliced up in a 
workable way, or the bootstrap wouldn't start at all. This jumps out 
as not only being bad, but happening right before meltdown.

> acpi: bad RSDP checksum (210)

Have you got the latest Dell BIOS for this hardware? If not you may 
be SOL if they don't support this hardware any more. I expect the 
GX1 is well past Dell's official EOL, but they may still have the 
files downloadable on their support site.

It might not help anyway. The alternative to making an old ACPI 
implementation work right is to try to work around its shortcomings 
by trying to boot around the problem or reconfigure the underlying 
system to eliminate the root cause of the conflict.

Searching http://www.google.com/bsd for "bad RSDP checksum" turns up 
that this is a recurring issue on older Dells, along with wildly 
disparate pokes at causes and solutions including:

toggling ACPI support on/off in the BIOS
workarounds for funky RAID cards
replacing the video card with a different model

Ain't low level hardware troubleshooting grand? I expect there are 
also boot loader command line options you can try to coax the system 
to start with hardware "as is" but I've never had to resort to that; 
the Handbook or others on the list are going to be more helpful than 
I can on that point.


-- 
Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator
South Central Library System (SCLS)
Library Interchange Network (LINK)
<gregb at scls.lib.wi.us>, (608) 266-6348