Bug 170677

Summary:	FreeBSD 9.x does not boot if 2 hard disks are on system
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	Harald von Fellenberg <productnews>
Component:	amd64	Assignee:	Andrey V. Elsukov <ae>
Status:	Closed FIXED
Severity:	Affects Only Me
Priority:	Normal
Version:	9.1-BETA1
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description Harald von Fellenberg 2012-08-16 20:40:11 UTC

FreeBSD 9.x does not boot on AMD64 system (16GB mem) when 2 hard disks are present, but boots if second disk is removed.
I tried FreeBSD 9.1-BETA1 and, earlier, PCBSD 9.0-RELEASE and PCBSD 9.0-STABLE-20120524 (all 64 bit). The behaviour is similar.

Hardware configuration:
-----------------------
Motherboard: GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3(rev. 1.0)
BIOS version: F9

CPU: Intel i5 2500K (3300) Quad Core
CPU frequency: 3300 MHz

Memory: 16 GB, Kingston DDR3-SDRAM 1333 MHz

Harddisks: 2 Western Digital WDC WD10EALX-009BA0 1 TB (SATA)

CD/DVD R/W: iHAS124 (SATA)

Graphics card: ASUS Nvidia GeForce ENGTX550 Ti DC DI

Power Supply: 550 W

BIOS Parameters (only the interesting ones)
-------------------------------------------

BIOS Version F9
EFI CD/DVD boot option AUTO
HDD SMART ENABLED
PCH SATA control mode AHCI
SATA Port 0-3 native mode ENABLED
GSATA3 controller ENABLED

System Behaviour:
-----------------
I bought the system in November 2011 with one HD and one DVD R/W.
I run this in a multi-boot configuration with Windows-7,
Ubuntu 10.04 (lucid lynx), Debian (squeeze), PCBSD 9.0 (FreeBSD based).
Everything worked fine.

Last month I added a second HD (identical type to first HD).
Installation details see above.
Windows-7, Ubuntu, and Debian worked as expected. But FreeBSD and PCBSD do not
start properly. I get the following display:

BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.02
Console: internal video/keyboard
BIOS drive C: is disk 0
BIOS drive D: is disk 1
|

The vertical bar | shows usually the "spinner", a rapid
sequence of | / - \ giving the user the impression ot a spinnign wheel,
until the loader prompt is displayed and the boot process continues.

In my case, the "spinner" does not spin, but remains quiet or advances
a few times in a multi-second interval until coming to complete stop.
This behaviour is the same for all the different SCSI and BIOS
configurations that I have tried.
The same behaviour occurs for booting PCBSD 9.x from HD, from DVD, and from
USB stick. FreeBSD 9.1-BETA1 boots from CD and can be installed on HD, but the installed system then gets stuck like shown.
In other words, FreeBSD cannot be run.

I assume that it is the bootstrap loader that poses a problem.

How-To-Repeat: the second disk has been unplugged (power and/or SATA), then both PCBSD and FreeBSD can be booted and run from the first HD. After pluggin in the second disk, booting FreeBSD and PCBSD fails.

Comment 1 Andrey V. Elsukov freebsd_committer

2013-01-05 20:58:57 UTC

Hi Harald,

Can you try the loader from the fresh FreeBSD 10-CURRENT snapshot or
from the FreeBSD 9-STABLE? They both contains many fixes and
improvements for the loader.

-- 
WBR, Andrey V. Elsukov

Comment 2 Harald von Fellenberg 2013-01-06 16:21:11 UTC

Am 05.01.2013 21:58, schrieb Andrey V. Elsukov:
> Hi Harald,
>
> Can you try the loader from the fresh FreeBSD 10-CURRENT snapshot or
> from the FreeBSD 9-STABLE? They both contains many fixes and
> improvements for the loader.
>
Hi Andrey

I will try it with pleasure as soon as I am back at my 64 bit machine, 
i.e. in about 10 days. I will then report back to you.

Harald

Comment 3 Harald von Fellenberg 2013-01-14 13:51:54 UTC

Am 06.01.2013 17:21, schrieb Productnews:
> Am 05.01.2013 21:58, schrieb Andrey V. Elsukov:
>> Hi Harald,
>>
>> Can you try the loader from the fresh FreeBSD 10-CURRENT snapshot or
>> from the FreeBSD 9-STABLE? They both contains many fixes and
>> improvements for the loader.
>>
> Hi Andrey
>
> I will try it with pleasure as soon as I am back at my 64 bit machine, 
> i.e. in about 10 days. I will then report back to you.
>
> Harald
Hi Andrey

I have installed 9.1-STABLE (amd64-20131018-r245175) on my system with 2 
HDs, and the system boots like a rocket! Excellent job of yours, thanks 
a lot! Dobro dobro :-)

Now I wish that the new loader finds its way into PCBSD asap!

thank you again

Harald

Comment 4 Andrey V. Elsukov freebsd_committer

2013-01-16 03:51:02 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->closed

The submitter has confirmed, that problem is fixed now.

Comment 5 Andrey V. Elsukov freebsd_committer

2013-01-16 03:51:02 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-amd64->ae

Take it.