From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 22 22:17:26 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A49D116A420; Tue, 22 Nov 2005 22:17:26 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@chillt.de) Received: from dd2718.kasserver.com (dd2718.kasserver.com [81.209.184.159]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 156F143D60; Tue, 22 Nov 2005 22:17:25 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd@chillt.de) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (dslb-084-060-097-232.pools.arcor-ip.net [84.60.97.232]) by dd2718.kasserver.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9108719D87; Tue, 22 Nov 2005 23:17:16 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <438398F2.9020802@chillt.de> Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 23:17:22 +0100 From: Bartosz Fabianowski User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (X11/20051106) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: martinko References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: recompiled 6.0 does not boot -- need help !! X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 22:17:26 -0000 > now, when i think of it, i suspect the reason might be CPUTYPE=pentium-m The relevant bug is 75898, which I filed almost a year ago. It has been fixed and MFC'd though, so it should not be affecting 6.0-release (I am using CPUTYPE=pentium-m on 6.0 myself). Most likely, something else went wrong. Still, all is not lost. When your system is starting up, hit any key after the BIOS has finished initializing the computer and before FreeBSD has given you any output on the screen. You'll end up in a prompt where you can select the boot loader. When you installed a new kernel, the previous loader got renamed to loader.old and that's the one you want to run. On my system, the prompt is: Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/loader boot: Simply copy the default line and append ".old", as in: boot: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/loader.old Once the boot loader has started up, it will count down a few seconds before starting the kernel. Since you're saying your kernel might be b0rked as well, you should hit any key but enter to get another prompt. It will look like this: OK Here, you can tell the loader to boot the previous kernel: OK boot /boot/kernel.old This should get you up and running again. You certainly should try to build a new, working kernel. But you should *absolutely* make sure to back up loader.old and kernel.old first, because if you install another kernel, those two will be overwritten by your current, broken loader and kernel. Simply run (as root): cp /boot/loader.old /boot/loader.good cp -R /boot/kernel.old /boot/kernel.good This way, you can always revert to loader.good and kernel.good if something goes wrong. Actually, it doesn't hurt to have a working kernel and loader lying around just in case. Update it periodically and you will always have a little safeguard in case you render your system unbootable. - Bartosz