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Date:      Wed, 5 Nov 2008 08:51:48 -0800
From:      Jeremy Chadwick <koitsu@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Christoph Kukulies <kuku@kukulies.org>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: 7.1-BETA2 installation on ASUS P4S8X fails BIG MEDIUM ERROR
Message-ID:  <20081105165148.GA15560@icarus.home.lan>
In-Reply-To: <4911C93E.4090803@kukulies.org>
References:  <49106440.4010906@kukulies.org> <1225813899.2734.1.camel@frodon.be-bif.ulb.ac.be> <491090CE.1090900@hdk5.net> <49109409.8030601@kukulies.org> <4911C46A.7020401@kukulies.org> <4911C93E.4090803@kukulies.org>

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On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 05:26:38PM +0100, Christoph Kukulies wrote:
> Christoph Kukulies schrieb:
>> Christoph Kukulies schrieb:
>>> Hi Al,
>>>
>>> thanks for pointing me to safe mode install. That I will probably try 
>>> tomorrow.
>>> The day ended up in havoc: I tried to boot a floppy to do an ASUS  
>>> BIOS upgrade and somehow messed with the power cable.
>>> A big flash occurred originating from the power supply. I opened the  
>>> power supply, found a blown fuse, ran to the electronics store,  
>>> bought a new fuse (+ one in reserve), inserted the fuse, tried the  
>>> power supply, with connections off and a firework, prematurely - your 
>>> presidential elections aren't finished yet - , developed in front of  
>>> my face. Will continue tomorrow, when America has a new president.
>>>
>>
>> Back at the problem: I chose 3. safe mode to no avail. Still get this
>>
>> acd0: FAILURE - READ BIG MEDIUM ERROR asc=0x11 ascq=0x00
> I now tried with a 7.0 BETA  Boot CD (which I had laying around from  
> possibly another fruitless attempt in the past to
> update that system from 5.1 or something to 7.x). Same picture. Hangs on  
> this
>
> acd0: FAILURE - READ BIG MEDIUM ERROR asc=0x21 ascq=0x00
> (asc=0x21 at this time FWIW).

This won't help you get FreeBSD installed any quicker, but it will give
you some insight to what the error messages mean.

ATAPI essentially uses SCSI commands but over an ATA bus, which is why
atapicam(4) exists (which is what's giving you the xpt_* errors).  The
problem is that not all drives are created equal, so some behave
differently to certain commands than others.

ASC and ASCQ are, in layman's terms, "error codes" with added degrees of
granularity.  ASC = Additional Sense Code, ASCQ = Additional Sense Code
Qualifier.  These are fairly well-documented all over the web, and per
T10 specifications.  Looking at a chart, specifically noting errors that
are for CD (MMC) devices, we find:

ASC 0x11, ASCQ 0x00 == Unrecovered Read Error
ASC 0x21, ASCQ 0x00 == Logical Block Address (LBA) Out of Range

Your first reaction will be "So does this mean I have a bad CD?", and
the answer is "not necessarily".  It could be that the drive does not
support the commands FreeBSD expects available to read a CD in this
particular fashion.  But it could also be a badly burned CD, or a
CD burned with buggy software.

If at all possible, try another CD drive of some kind.  Get one from a
friend, borrow one, or buy one.  People have had good experiences with
Plextor and Pioneer drives, while recent Samsung drives have been
hit-or-miss.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |




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