The 9.0-BETA2 USB installation image uses a GPT partition table, which is not bootable on systems that have a buggy BIOS. E.g. Gigabyte GA-D510UD. Attempting to boot the system while the USB stick is connected will cause the BIOS to fail - the failure mode depends upon the bug in the BIOS. The Gigabyte GA-D510UD will lock up completely when it runs into a GPT partition table of this kind. The pmbr does not match the CHS setup that the BIOS expects. Related bug: bin/115406: [patch] gpt(8) GPT MBR hangs award BIOS on boot Fix: This problem can only be fixed by trying to circumvent the buggy BIOSes. The most reliable way would be to revert the USB image to MBR format. Another alternative is to ensure that the pmbr of the GPT partition table contains a correct CHS configuration, but the GPT pmbr may still cause problems on some BIOSes. How-To-Repeat: - Download 9.0-BETA2 USB installation image, install on USB stick - Connect USB stick to system with GPT issues, attempt to boot the system - Boot fails Compare this to the 8.2-RELEASE image, which uses MBR and thus boots correctly.
Responsible Changed From-To: freebsd-amd64->freebsd-bugs Problem most likely affects more than just amd64.
For bugs matching the following criteria: Status: In Progress Changed: (is less than) 2014-06-01 Reset to default assignee and clear in-progress tags. Mail being skipped
As a test, can you grab the image from https://people.freebsd.org/~emaste/mini-image.amd64.xz, uncompress it and write it to a USB stick, and try booting in BIOS and UEFI modes?
^Triage: I'm sorry that this PR did not get addressed in a timely fashion. By now, the version that it was created against is long out of suppoprt. Please re-open if it is still a problem on a supported version.