From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 1 18:23:26 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0466C106564A for ; Thu, 1 May 2008 18:23:26 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@parodius.com) Received: from mx01.sc1.parodius.com (mx01.sc1.parodius.com [72.20.106.3]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E4B0E8FC0C for ; Thu, 1 May 2008 18:23:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@parodius.com) Received: by mx01.sc1.parodius.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id B1FDC1CC033; Thu, 1 May 2008 11:23:25 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 11:23:25 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Shaun Sabo Message-ID: <20080501182325.GA62281@eos.sc1.parodius.com> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.17 (2007-11-01) Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 7.0 SATA Controller X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 May 2008 18:23:26 -0000 On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 01:34:53PM -0400, Shaun Sabo wrote: > Im trying to install FreeBSD 7.0 on a Dell XPS 600 desktop machine and im > having a lot of trouble with this. First I could not use USB keyboards with > the installer program (which is fine, i dont mind switching to PS2). then > once i got into the sysinstaller it does not detect my Hard Disks. i also > tried installing an old 6.2 cd that i had sitting around and remaking world > and kernel but when i installed the kernel and restarted to go into single > user mode the system could not mount the root filesystem. the motherboard im > using is a nvidia nforce4 with Serial ATA hard disks. Does anyone know how > to get FreeBSD 7.0 to recognize my hard drives? Re: USB keyboard: USB support on FreeBSD is spotty. That said, I've never run into problems getting FreeBSD to detect and use a USB keyboard (other USB devices are a different story). You'd need to provide some dmesg(8) output to verify, but I know that's going to be difficult until you can get FreeBSD installed. Re: SATA disks: I can assure you that FreeBSD works fine with SATA disks connected to an nForce 4 chipset, because I've used them myself with no issue. Chances are there's a BIOS setting that's causing mayhem, or you may be using a RAID array of some sort (since the XPS700 is one of those "gamer lozlozlz" systems). The manual for this system is here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xps700/ Screenshots of the BIOS are here: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/09/04/Dell_XPS_700_review/5 Are you using RAID at all on this system? If so, chances are that's why it doesn't see your array. Finally, if available, I'd try a BIOS update. Googling for results shows that system has quite a large number of issues with its BIOSes, and Dell has been fairly good about providing updates to fix problems. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |