From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 12 18:32:16 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8929616A4CE; Wed, 12 May 2004 18:32:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from forrie.com (forrie.ne.client2.attbi.com [24.62.205.225]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3CF243D2D; Wed, 12 May 2004 18:32:15 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from forrie@forrie.com) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (i-95.forrie.net. [192.168.1.95]) by forrie.com with ESMTP id i4D1W5nt096190; Wed, 12 May 2004 21:32:09 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from forrie@forrie.com) Message-ID: <40A2D013.5090700@forrie.com> Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 21:32:03 -0400 From: Forrest Aldrich User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.6 (Windows/20040502) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-RAVMilter-Version: 8.3.0(snapshot 20010925) (forrie.ne.client2.attbi.com) X-MailScanner-LocalNet: Found to be clean X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 13 May 2004 05:03:48 -0700 Subject: Trouble with FreeBSD 5.2.1 and SATA X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 01:32:16 -0000 I posted a message recently about troubles encountered with FreeBSD-5.x and my SATA drives, controlled by an on-board Silicon Image chip. I understand there were some code glitches in between and thus my update via CVS and subsequent rebuild of the system created a problem. However, just to be sure, I brought my machine in to the shop to be tested. Windows/XP has no problem booting up and it recognizes the drives. So I returned the machine here and have tried to reinstall FreeBSD-5.2.1-RELEASE and am now encountering more problems. When I partition the drives, I make sure that all 4 (SATA) drives are consumed by FreeBSD and that newfs (added -b 16384 -f 2048 options to some partitions) is performed. The listing of drives is in reverse order: ad10 ad4 ad6 ad8 (I think that was the correct prefix) I first selected "4" as the root drive, and selected the standard MBR. When the installation was complete, I rebooted and the boot process couldn't find a valid partition and I was left at the "boot" prompt. I reinstalled, using "10" as the root drive, again selecting "standard MBR" for each drive (just to be sure) and the same thing happened: invalid partition, etc. Clearly the boot record is being read, as I'm at the boot prompt. I did run into an error I've reported before, where FreeBSD complains about the disk's geometry, and says it is using something "more likely" -- as I recall, that was the right route to go - as I entered in what I see in the SOYO BIOS and it still complains. I'm stumped as to what the problem could be at this point; any assistance in resolving this would be appreciated. I know I should have gone with SCSI and I probably wouldn't be having these problems now ;-) But this is what I have. The SATA drives are 80gb's (less prone to problems). Thanks, Forrest