Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 19:56:37 -0800 From: Devin Teske <devin.teske@fisglobal.com> To: Bill Tillman <btillman99@yahoo.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: 9.0-RELEASE amd64 Bricked My Hard Drive Message-ID: <ADB1417D-A998-4FEF-BFEE-BACA19AF06EB@fisglobal.com> In-Reply-To: <1325819792.82542.YahooMailNeo@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4F0517BA.1050405@mykitchentable.net> <1325819792.82542.YahooMailNeo@web36502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Jan 5, 2012, at 7:16 PM, Bill Tillman wrote: > Today I encountered a problem which has me stumped. I downloaded and > burned the ISO image for 9.0-RELEASE for amd64. I installed an older > IDE hard drive to test the new OS with and did the install. I was very > surprised at the (1) the dvd is actually a live CD if you wanted it to be > and (2) the installers screens have all been revamped. I can't say for su= re > if the partitioning part was where it went south on me because I was > attempting to setup some additional partitions but the input screens had > me confused and I pressed Auto so it took off and made the default > paritions. I thought cool, I'll let the install finish and check things o= ut then > reinstall later with the partition setup I wanted. Well the install finis= hed and > then I attempted to reboot the system but nothing happened. And by that I > mean the computer's flash screen would come up and give me the choice > to enter the Bios Setup or Boot Menu and that's all. I could not enter the > bios setup or the Boot menu. The keyboard was still responding as I > could press the CapLock key and toggle the light on and off, but outside > of that the computer would not boot. On the advice of some of the techs > in #FreeBSD channel I moved the drive over to another computer which > was working fine, and the same thing happened. The computer would > start up, show me the flash screen to do the Bios setup and then nothing. > I put the other drive back in and it worked fine. I tried another computer > and the results were the same. Now it gets really wierd. I thought that I > could just make this IDE drive a slave and boot with another drive and > cleanup the mess. But no matter which computer I chose, and no matter > how I setup the Slave/Master drive, as long as this drive which I had > installed FreeBSD-9.0-amd64 was in the loop, the computer would > lockup at the bios screen. I could not get anything to boot if this drive > was in the loop. If I removed it everything was fine. So basically, > FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE bricked an otherwise good 80GB hard drive > and I can't seem to recover it. >=20=20 > Any suggestions would be appreciated.=20=20=20 Can you get into the BIOS of the original machine *while the bad drive is d= isconnected* ? If so, I'd try changing the boot options in the BIOS to boot from something= like external USB but not from IDE. You'll want to find settings that are geared towards totally eliminating th= e possibility that the BIOS will scan the drive as a boot device. Depending on your BIOS settings, this may involve changing the "Boot Order"= to not include IDE (or ATA), or if you find it as a numbered boot device, = disabling that numbered device (e.g. you see "Boot Device 2" and it says "I= DE", see if it offers "Disabled" as an option). If you can successfully change your boot options in the BIOS to not scan th= e IDE channels, ... remember, the drive is still not connected at this poin= t ... then you should be able to connect the drive and get the same result = -- the BIOS will tell you there's no bootable devices attached (as you've, = hopefully, been able to disable that source of devices from the list of tho= se probed/scanned). At this point, you now need to find something other than IDE to boot from (= as you've now disabled that type of device -- including CD/ROM). Hopefully your system is new enough to boot from USB media. Grab DruidBSD Tools disk on another (working) machine ... http://sourceforge.net/projects/druidbsd/files/Druid-0.0.iso/download Descriptions here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/druidbsd/files/ Get yourself a USB thumb drive. NOTE: Say goodbye to what's currently on your thumb drive -- make backups t= o another machine before you do this. 1. Execute before you attach your thumb drive: sysctl kern.disks 2. Insert thumb drive 3. Execute after you've attached the thumb drive: sysctl kern.disks 4. Identify the newly-available "da#" device 5. Execute (replacing "da#" with the appropriate device name) as root (or s= udo(8)): dd if=3DDruid-0.0.iso of=3D/dev/da# bs=3D512k conv=3Dsync HINT: You can press Ctrl-T while it's writing the ISO file to the thumb dri= ve to get a (somewhat) helpful progress indication. When finished, you can use your USB thumb drive to do all sorts of rescue-w= ork, including wiping the bad drive with Darik's Boot and Nuke (lol) -- use= d for secure government wipes -- or Active (R) Kill Disk Free Edition, both= on the disk linked-to above. There's also Seagate Disk Utilities, which so= me of our field engineers found useful (I think it-too has a disk-wiper). --=20 Devin _____________ The information contained in this message is proprietary and/or confidentia= l. If you are not the intended recipient, please: (i) delete the message an= d all copies; (ii) do not disclose, distribute or use the message in any ma= nner; and (iii) notify the sender immediately. In addition, please be aware= that any message addressed to our domain is subject to archiving and revie= w by persons other than the intended recipient. Thank you.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?ADB1417D-A998-4FEF-BFEE-BACA19AF06EB>