# FreeBSD 9.0 with Geli: "loader: not a directory"



## Beastmaster (Jan 18, 2012)

Hi there FreeBSDers,

I'm trying to install FreeBSD on my desktop machine. It's my first time trying to install FreeBSD. My CPU is a Phenom II X6 1090T, so I got the AMD64 FreeBSD 9.0 iso.

I'm attempting to make the install encrypted, by following this how-to, modulo a few system-specific changes.

When I got to boot into the system after installing, I receive this message:

```
Loading Operating System ...
loader: not a directory.
gptboot: No /boot/loader on 0:ad(0p2)
kernel: not a directory.
gptboot: No /boot/kernel/kernel on 0:ad(0p2)

FreeBSD/x86 boot
Default: 0:ad(0p2)/boot/kernel/kernel
Boot:
```

It is true that I don't see any files or directories called kernel in /boot, but there is a file called loader.

Notes on how I diverged from the how-to:

I have three hard-drives; I'm trying to install onto ada2, not ada0.
To set up the /boot partition (ada2p2), I set the size to 512M, not 256m.
I labelled the encrypted partition crypt, not enc.
I gave *geli init* the additional flag -e aes.
I notice the installer ignores the symbolic link between /mnt/boot and /mnt/boot2 - the /boot partition doesn't end up with anything in it, so after installing, I copied the files over manually.
In the chroot environment, I added an entry for proc to /etc/fstab like so: 
	
	



```
proc  /proc  procfs  rw  0  0
```


I tried googling for my errors. I found this and this. Both seem like similar sorts of problems, but I didn't see any definitive solutions that I could adapt to my case. I also tried searching these forums, but didn't come up with any results.

I also found this. Could the problem be that the /boot partition needs to be at least 2G? That seems a little excessive, especially given the how-to I'm working off only says 256m ...

Any help you could please provide would be much appreciated. Of course, let me know if you require additional information.

Thank you for your consideration.


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## Beastmaster (Jan 19, 2012)

Okay, an update. Something went wrong when I tried copying the installed boot files to the /boot partition. I did the copy again and now there is a /boot/kernel/kernel, like there's supposed to be.

However, I still keep getting the same errors.

Does no one have any ideas about this? I think if it was obvious, my googling and hacking around different configs would have showed the answer by now. I'd really appreciate help from someone who knows their way around FreeBSD and geli.


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