Problem with /boot/loader

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:53:44 +0200
> From: Volker <volker at vwsoft.com>
> Sender: owner-freebsd-stable at freebsd.org
> 
> On 12/23/-58 20:59, Kelly Black wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I have a problem with loader. I recently upgraded from 6_rel to 7_rel.
> > Now when I install world there is a problem booting.
> > 
> > Here is what I do:
> > cd /usr/src
> > make buildworld
> > make buildkernel KERNCONF=BLACK
> > make installkernel KERNCONF=BLACK
> > 
> > At this point I can reboot and all is good. After boot I install the new world:
> > 
> > cd /usr/src
> > mergemaster -p
> > reboot into single user mode
> > cd /usr/src
> > make installworld
> > mergemaster
> > 
> > Now when I reboot there is a problem. I get an error that the system
> > cannot boot. Part of it looks like this:
> > Can't work out which disk we are booting from.
> > Guessed BIOS device 0xffffffff not found by probes, defaulting to disk0:
> > 
> > If I boot from a live disk and replace /boot/loader with
> > /boot/loader.old it boots up fine and everything looks good. A new
> > world and a new kernel. I would be grateful for any help or any
> > pointers.
> > 
> > Sincerely,
> > Kel
> > 
> > PS I do not do anything special with my loader config files:
> > 
> > $ cat loader.conf
> >...
> 
> Kelly,
> 
> the /boot/loader.conf file does not come into play at that stage. Early
> in the loader code, loader needs to figure out, which disk (BIOS device)
> has been booted from. Until loader knows which device was booted up,
> it's unable to access any files (even loader.conf) on your boot device.
> 
> As I've never seen such a problem while upgrading any system, I suspect
> your problem must be settings specific. Can you show me your kernel
> config or are you using a plain vanilla GENERIC? Which arch are we
> talking about?
> 
> As I'm currently investigating another boot problem (but earlier in the
> boot chain), I'll check boot logic in the source code and may check for
> your issue, too, at that time, so it's just one effort. But please stay
> patient for some days, as I'm currently too busy.

We just got hit by this. The loader never loads and nothing boots. But a
system admin discovered that the problem disappeared if the /boot.conf
file was deleted. It just contained '-P'.

Once this file was removed, the system just booted up as expected. When
he changed it to -D or -h, the boot still locked up. 
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751
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