Unable to install FreeBSD-11.0-i386 on a elderly desktop

[Manish Jain]

On Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 2:57 AM, Per olof Ljungmark <peo at intersonic.se> wrote:
On 2017-04-20 23:11, James B. Byrne wrote:
I am trying to install FreeBSD-11.0 on a older model HP Compaq DC7700S desktop. I downloaded FreeBSD-11.0-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso, ran sha256sum and verified the image and then created a bootable DVD from the downloaded iso. I put this into the DVD drive of the unit and booted. it initially brought up the boot menu and I proceeded through the install process selecting guided zfs for the filesystem. However, half way through the transfer of kernel.txz I began to receive media errors. I also began to see the message cdrom error 5 unretryable. After several retries with new media I now cannot get the cdrom boot menu to display at all. What i get instead is a message on the console that 'Can't find boot/zfsloader' followed by: FreeBSD/x86 boot Default: zroot/ROOT/default:/boot/kernel/kernel boot: \ Can't find /boot/kernel/kernel


Hi,

1) I suspect that your system is not booting from CD/DVD but from the hard disk even when the media is inserted in the drive. Please check your BIOS settings and make sure that the optical drive is at the top priority.

2) Also make sure that your disks (both the CD drive and your hard disk) are being presented to FreeBSD as Legacy devices, not UEFI. UEFI is the new implementation of torture.

3) I suspect you are using GPT partitioning. "Can't find /boot/*" messages are quite endemic when you GPT or UEFI or (even USB install media).

Do let me know what fixes things at your end. I am keen to know.

Regards
Manish Jain