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Date:      Wed, 29 May 2002 14:43:40 -0500 (CDT)
From:      Kim Scarborough <kjs@enteract.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Boot error: "loader(8) metadata missing"
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0205291415160.68903-100000@shell-2.enteract.com>

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I'm running 4.5-STABLE, last CVSUPped on April 24th, on a box that I
usually do not have console access to. It's been running with no problems
for almost a year. 

Two days ago, I suddenly lost ssh access to the box. It still was up and
running, and apache was serving up web pages, but ssh connection attempts
would immediately disconnect. Port 25 was still open (the box was running
postfix), but it wouldn't respond to anything on it. 

I waited a little bit to see if things would go back to normal, but they
didn't. I forced a hard reboot at the remote APC, and it didn't come back.

This morning, I got on console and saw what was happening when it tried to
boot. After power-up, it would say "No /boot/loader", then, after a few
minutes, it would try to boot anyway. The boot would give an error of
"loader(8) metadata missing!" and then proceed through the regular boot
process up to "WARNING: / was not properly dismounted", and then hang. 

I went to boot off floppies so I could use the fixit floppy, but the
kernel floppy had bad sectors. (I *hate* floppies.) So I had to leave. I'm
going back tomorrow, and I was wondering if people could tell me things to
do or check once I get down there, as I've not run into this sort of thing
before. A search for that metadata error only gives FreeBSD PR #37451
<http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=37451>,, but I'm not convinced
that's the same thing that's happening to me (although the description of
the boot problems is the same). Namely, his system always was like that
after going to a particular -STABLE, whereas mine just started happening
suddenly. Also, I'm not sure if that error message is indicative of the
main problem, or just of a symptom. So I guess my questions are 1) What
should I look at first when I finally manage to get in the box with the
floppies; and 2) Do you have any idea what this could be?


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