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Date:      Tue, 13 Nov 2018 22:15:15 +0000
From:      bugzilla-noreply@freebsd.org
To:        standards@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   [Bug 233211] [boot] [image] 11.2-RELEASE freezes Gigabyte motherboard
Message-ID:  <bug-233211-99@https.bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/>

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https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3D233211

            Bug ID: 233211
           Summary: [boot] [image] 11.2-RELEASE freezes Gigabyte
                    motherboard
           Product: Base System
           Version: 11.2-RELEASE
          Hardware: amd64
                OS: Any
            Status: New
          Keywords: crash, easy, install, standards
          Severity: Affects Some People
          Priority: ---
         Component: standards
          Assignee: standards@FreeBSD.org
          Reporter: rodrigo.freebsd@minasambiente.com.br
                CC: bcran@FreeBSD.org, kevans@freebsd.org

OVERVIEW:
FreeBSD-11.2-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img causes computer to freeze until
rearranging installation media MBR and partition alignment on Gygabyte
motherboard GA-G41M-ES2L

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
Using various USB sticks with various different BIOS configurations (USB
1.0/2.0 Enable/Disable | Legacy USB Support Enable/Disable etc), tested wit=
h 6
different vendor/sizes USB sticks with same result: Computer freezes right
after BIOS memory check at initial stages. Same USB sticks works if loaded =
with
different content (e.g. GRUB from other OSes).

STEPS TO FIX THE ISSUE:
It seems that realigning the partitions to MiB boundaries fixed the freezing
issue. The original FreeBSD-11.2-RELEASE-amd64-memstick has the EFI partiti=
on
starting at sector 1, right after MBR data.

The following steps resulted in a fix for the situation:
- Backing up MBR, EFI and BOOT partitions from actual USB stick loaded with=
 the
image.
- Wipe USB stick with zeros
- Restore MBR from backup
- Delete actual partitions as pointed in MBR using fdisk on linux
- Recreate the EFI and BOOT partitions using linux fdisk with exact same to=
tal
sector size as in the original image and same partition ID types
- Restoring EFI and BOOT partition data from backup to the newly created on=
es

After this procedure the EFI partition starts at sector 2048 and no more at
sector 1. Now aligned to MiB as this is a standard in recent linux fdisk
program

CONSIDERATIONS:
Although I=E2=80=99m not an expert in the subject what I think is (and I ma=
y be wrong
on these):
- The EFI partition starting at sector 1 seems like an exotic alignment (or=
 not
really aligned to expected usual page sizes)
- Using usual/recommended partition alignment can avoid compatibility issue=
s by
avoiding uncommon situations (not tested at product development cycle, e.g.
tested only with expected page sizes or even hardware being unable to load =
very
different page sizes from BIOS)
- Sector 1 is expected to be used by GPT in GPT scheme, keeping that space =
free
of use for other purposes seems to be a good call, for compatibility reason=
s.

--=20
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