# Repair Freebsd 11 boot on VirtualBox



## pawelw (Nov 1, 2017)

Hello everybody, I'm new user.
I have installed FreeBSD 11 probably 11.1, on VirtualBox 5.xx. Everything worked great until I wanted to change splash screen and added to /boot/loader.conf line:

```
vesa_load="YES"
```
To have better resolution (found tutorial on internet), I'm just an amateur, so I didn't know it will crash system.
I would like to edit this file loader.conf and delete this line but I don't know to do it. I tried run freebsd like livecd from iso file but like an amateur I don't know how to enter hard disk. On windows I have c:, d: ...
I found /dev/mda0 but I can't enter it `cd /dev/mda0`, this is not a directory. I can't mount it to /mnt because /mnt is read-only. While booting crashed system I can press 3 and use few commands like ls, more but there is no file editor like nano, ee, vi.

These are maybe very stupid problem but I new to console and Unix/Linux system
Thanks for help


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## SirDice (Nov 1, 2017)

pawelw said:


> While booting crashed system I can press 3 and use few commands like ls, more but there is no file editor like nano, ee, vi.


You mean on the "beasty" menu? Can you select and boot single user? And did you use UFS or ZFS?

Note that old tutorials tend to be based on the old sc(4) console, a few versions ago FreeBSD switched to the vt(4) console, so those old tutorials don't work any more. 

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Newcons


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## pawelw (Nov 1, 2017)

booting looks:
1 Boot multi user (result in picture)
2 Single user (the same crash)



3 Escape to loader prompt
I'm pressing 3, then i have pwd, ls, more, show, boot, reboot ...
But i do not have any editor
i can only use more /boot/loader.conf
maybe there is any editor but i dont know the name




so i added iso file freebsd like livecd but when i chose shell i have only directories as read only and i cant mount probably my hdd /dev/mda0


I dont know which i have ZFS or UFS


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## scottro (Nov 1, 2017)

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/58506/

Does that help at all?  My guess is that you have UFS if you aren't sure.
There's a few different solutions mentioned in that thread, (and the problem apparently had the same cause, trying to add vesa).

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/58506/#post-334887 by Datapanic seems as if it should work.


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## pawelw (Nov 1, 2017)

i have repaired it
added in virtualbox/memory livecd.iso(700mb 64bit), started, selected livecd.
in console:
`gpart show`
its show me



in this link New https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/58506/
i saw its possible to create directory in tmp
so i did
`cd /tmp`
`mkdir 1`
`mount /dev/ada0s1 /tmp/1`
`cd /tmp/1/boot`
`ee loader.conf`
and deleted line

```
vesa_load="YES"
```
unmounted livecd and system started


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