From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Sat May 10 16:28:24 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9477F106567C for ; Sat, 10 May 2008 16:28:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rar102@ra.msstate.edu) Received: from catalpa.its.msstate.edu (catalpa.its.msstate.edu [130.18.2.119]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 455E08FC12 for ; Sat, 10 May 2008 16:28:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rar102@ra.msstate.edu) Received: from localhost (archive.msstate.edu [130.18.80.18]) by catalpa.its.msstate.edu (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m4AGFCmV008872 for ; Sat, 10 May 2008 11:15:12 -0500 Received: from 64.234.76.20 ([64.234.76.20]) by webmail.msstate.edu (IMP) with HTTP for ; Sat, 10 May 2008 11:15:12 -0500 Message-ID: <1210436112.4825ca102cfce@webmail.msstate.edu> Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 11:15:12 -0500 From: rar102@ra.msstate.edu To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) 3.2.8 X-Originating-IP: 64.234.76.20 Subject: compaq 6515b turion x2 laptop X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 16:28:24 -0000 I recently bought a new laptop. I have been unsuccesful in installing FreeBSD (or any alternatives for that matter) onto it. I wonder if I can get some help. I have tried to: 1. install the FreeBSD amd64 7.0 release. Stopped at a "No disks found!" prompt. With a little bit googling, I see that FreeBSD has been successfully installed onto ST9120822AS hard drive. 2. run the latest Knoppix on it (just to see if the Debian i386 Linux flavors can do it). Hangs on detecting hard drive. To be honest, I want BSD if I can use it, anyway. 3. install the FreeBSD 7-stable amd64 April snapshot. Same result as #1. 4. install NetBSD amd 4.0-release. Gives a disk geometry warning but installs without much further ado. In fact, I am still using NetBSD's bootloader. It boots both Vista and NetBSD. But... when I boot into NetBSD, it overheats, panics and dies within a minute. Trolling the internet again, I see that I am not the only one that has run into this problem. It is not running long enough to try an ftp install. I would like to not burn up this motherboard and I don't see any NetBSD snapshot iso's to see if they have resolved this problem. 5. install the FreeBSD i386 7.0 release. Installer complains about disk geometry. At the partitioning screen I press 'g' ('Set Disk Geometry'). I previously used Vista's magic partition resizer to leave me some space. I tell the sysintall to format that empty space as ufs2 and press 'q' ('Quit' out the disk partitioning step of sysintall). At this point, it pops up a message that my partitions are not starting on disk boundaries. I aborted the install at that point. It may still work. I just don't know. I would rather 6. install the FreeBSD i386 7-stable April snapshot. Same result as #1 and #3. This was kind of strange. I would have expected the same result as #5. Any suggestions??? RAR