186 lines
6.9 KiB
Plaintext
186 lines
6.9 KiB
Plaintext
Troubleshooting Tips - or "These are the times that try men's souls"
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--------------------------------------------------------------------
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The following tips and tricks may help you turn a failing (or failed)
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installation attempt into a success. Please read them carefully.
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---
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Symptom: Hardware conflict or misconfiguration.
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Device not being found when it should be.
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Problem: A device is conflicting with another, or its settings
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don't match the kernel's expected IRQ or address.
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Explanation: While most device drivers in FreeBSD are now smart
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enough to match themselves to your hardware settings
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dynamically, there are a few that still require fairly
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rigid configuration parameters to be compiled in (and
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matched by the hardware) before they'll work. We're
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working hard to eliminate as many of these last
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hold-outs as we can, but it's not always as easy as
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it looks.
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Solution: There are several possible solutions. The first,
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and easiest, is to boot the kernel with the -c flag.
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When you see the initial boot prompt (from floppy or
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hard disk), type:
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/kernel -c
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This will boot just past the memory sizing code and
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then drop into a dynamic kernel configuration utility.
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Type `?' at the prompt to see a list of commands. You
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can use this utility to reset the IRQ, memory address,
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IO address or a number of other device configuration
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parameters. You can also disable a device entirely
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if it's causing problems for other devices you'd much
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rather have work. Note that this only affects the
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kernel being booted temporarily, it does not "write out"
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the information to the kernel so that these settings
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are permanantly altered (this would be actually rather
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hard). If you reboot, you'll have to make the same
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changes again. The goal of the -c utility is to get
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you up far enough to be able to download the appropriate
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sources and configure and rebuild a kernel more specific
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to your needs.
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Another solution is, obviously, to remove the offending
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hardware or simply strip the system down to the bare
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essentials until the problem (hopefully) goes away.
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Once you're up, you can do the same thing mentioned
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above - compile a kernel more suited to your hardware,
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or incrementally try to figure out what it was about
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your original hardware configuration that didn't work.
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---
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Symptom: My floppy-tape drive isn't probed.
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Problem: Last-minute problems with this driver caused it to be disabled
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by default.
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Solution: Boot with -c (described above) and set the flags value of
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fdc0 to 1. This will re-enable the floppy tape driver.
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Sorry, but it was causing problems for people without floppy
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tape drives!
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---
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Symptom: When I boot for the first time, it still looks for /386bsd!
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Problem: You still have the old FreeBSD 1.x boot blocks on your
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boot partition.
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Solution: You should re-enter the installation process, invoke
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the (F)disk editor and chose the (W)rite option. This
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won't hurt an existing installation and will make sure
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that the new boot blocks get written to the drive.
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If you're installing for the first time, don't forget
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to (W)rite out your new boot blocks! :-)
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---
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Symptom: I want to boot FreeBSD off the second drive. It doesn't!
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Problem: FreeBSD will actually install just fine on a drive other
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than 0 (the first drive), and the boot manager will even
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allow you to select it, but the boot blocks rather
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pathologically assume 0. This should be fixed in 2.1.
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Solution: Easy - follow these steps:
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1. Select the first (0) drive from the (F)disk editor
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and write out the boot manager with the (B) option.
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This will enable the boot manager that allows you to
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actually boot off the other drive.
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2. Exit the fdisk editor for the first drive and and
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re-enter it again for the drive you wish to install
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on. Set up a partition on this drive, or select
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(A)ll for the entire drive.
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3. Enter the disklabel editor and allocate space on
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your second drive as normal. Proceed with the
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installation.
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4. Once you've installed on the disk and are going to
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reboot from the hard disk, enter the following at
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the boot prompt:
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wd(1,a)/kernel
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[ If you're using a SCSI drive, substitute
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`sd' for `wd' above ]
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This will ensure that you really boot from the second
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drive. If you've actually installed on a drive other
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than 1 (the 3rd or 4th drive?), substitute that number
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in for the above. You will need to enter this EVERY
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time you reboot from the hard disk. If you're feeling
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brave and have a srcdist + the requisite experience,
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you can hack the boot blocks in:
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/usr/src/sys/i386/boot/biosboot
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So that this drive you're booting from is hard-coded.
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Recompile the boot blocks and reinstall them on your
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drive with `disklabel -B ...' You can then have the
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default Do The Right Thing.
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---
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Symptom: Newfs crashes, requesting that blocksize be 32K
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Problem: You have your disk controller configured to translate
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to a some really large cylinder size because you're using
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a drive with lots of cylinders.
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Solution: Turn such translation OFF in your controller's BIOS
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setup if you can. If you must share the disk with other
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Operating Systems, then this may not be possible and
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you may simply be unable to install FreeBSD until we have
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support for large translated geometries, sorry!
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[ Hopefully in 2.1 ].
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---
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Symptom: FreeBSD won't boot off the hard disk
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Problem: Root partition does not start and end below cylinder 1024.
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Solution: See solution for newfs crashes, or move your root
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partition. This limitation holds true for ANY operating
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system you wish to boot from your hard drive.
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---
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Symptom: FreeBSD still won't boot off the hard disk
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Problem: No boot code is installed in sector 1.
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Solution: Chose the Write MBR (B)oot code in the FDISK editor and
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write out the boot manager so that you have a chance to
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select operating systems.
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[ ** NOTE: If you are using the entire disk for FreeBSD, or
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you have a Connor drive that does cylinder translation
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from the MBR boot code, do NOT chose this option! ** ].
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---
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Summary: Nope, FreeBSD's still not booting from the hard disk.
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Cause: BIOS disk geometry different from that used when
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installing FreeBSD.
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Solution: With IDE drives, pay careful attention to the geometry
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information that FreeBSD prints out when it's first
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booting off the floppy. Use this geometry in your BIOS
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setup or use the BIOS geometry when you install FreeBSD.
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Either way, they have to match.
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With SCSI drives, the values they report is most often
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bogus and cannot be used. In this situation, the SCSI
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controller is performing geometry translation and
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it's probably wise to assume a default of 64 heads,
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32 sectors and 1MB/cylinder. Use these values when
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you install FreeBSD. See above comments concerning
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newfs failures for more info.
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