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Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 23:11:44 +1100
From: Tony Frank <tfrank@optushome.com.au>
To: Mike Newell <mnewell@newell.arlington.va.us>
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cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Boot loop in FreeBSD 5.2-RELEASE after install
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Hi there,

On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 11:26:18AM -0500, Mike Newell wrote:
> I am trying to install FreeBSD on a Dell Precision 410 workstation.  The
> system has two 18G SCSI drives (Seagate ST318203LW) on an Adaptec 7890
> SCSI adaptor (BIOS V2.01.05).  I've gone through the entire install and
> when the system tries to boot the first time the boot loader loads, then a
> huge amount of text scrolls VERY rapidly up the screen [I can see the word
> "Can't" but this is scrolling VERY fast], then the system resets (clearing
> the screen of course) and the process starts again.

[ ... ]

> Can anyone help?  Is there any way to slow the bootup process so I can at
> least read the errors?

While I cannot perhaps comment on your problem, you can try either pressing
'pause' key or 'scrolllock' which might help depending on where the problems
are occuring.

Do you get past the "F1 FreeBSD" part to the loader?
ie do you see a "-" appear on screen?

Can you perhaps try a serial console?   
If you can get into the boot loader you should be able to set com1 as 
your console.

Hope that helps,

Tony