FreeBSD 9.1 won't boot after install

[James E. Pace]

Thanks for the reply.  I appreciate your trying to help me.

On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 5 Jul 2013, James E. Pace wrote:
>
>> I bought an HP Pavilion p7-1597c [1] system last week.  It is Intel Core
>> i5-3330, with a Seagate 1.5 TB SATA drive and 12 GB of memory, shipped with
>> Windows 8.
[...]
>> I am able to complete the install of FreeBSD 9.1/amd64 from the CD without
>> any problems.  However, when I attempt to boot, it doesn't.
[...]
>> After an install, I get to the boot0 (the F1 boot menu thing) screen, but
>> when it tries to boot, it prints "#" and doesn't boot.  When trying to
>> share the disk with Windows, mostly I'd get boot errors about not having a
>> bootable device (ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has
>> failed.).

> boot0 is the multi-boot loader.  I'm reasonably sure it will not work on a GPT disk.  GPT needs the PMBR loader.  This should be correctable by using the Shell option of the install disk:
>   # gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0
>
> The installer would write that by default on a blank disk.  I don't know what it does when partitions are added to a GPT disk.  For that matter, I'm not sure how you got boot0 on there.

boot0 must have been installed when I did MBR partitioning, and/or PCBSD did it?

> If there is nothing on the disk to lose, I would start from scratch by going to the shell from the installer:
>   # gpart destroy -F ada0
>
> Return to the installer, and it should find the entire disk unpartitioned.

I booted the 9.1 install CD, executed "gpart destroy -F ada0", and
installed.  After completing the install, boot fails with:

ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has failed.

I booted the install CD again, and executed:

# gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0

and rebooted.

I got the same error:

ERROR: No boot disk has been detected or the disk has failed.

> If you really want to multi-boot, reinstall Windows 8.

The Windows ship has sailed -- the system didn't come with media, and
the install has been removed.  So, I'm committed. :)

Do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks,

James