# FreeBSD will not boot after installation (v10)



## balanga (Jul 22, 2014)

I have just installed FreeBSD v10 on a brand new Intel 160GB SSD disk installing from a USB image. The installation went ok AFAICT but I am unable to boot from the disk. I can, however boot FreeBSD with the aid of a USB stick which has YUMI multiboot installer on it. Can anyone suggest what I should be looking at to see where the problem lies?


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## bsdkeith (Jul 22, 2014)

Sounds like you missed the bit about installing a boot loader in the installation sequence. I'm not an expert on here, so someone else will need to explain how to do it. Hope you get sorted quickly.


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## wblock@ (Jul 22, 2014)

Was this a simple install on a blank disk, or was an operating system already on the SSD and FreeBSD was installed in an additional partition?


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## balanga (Jul 22, 2014)

It was a brand new blank SSD disk. I assume there was nothing previously installed. A complicating factor may be that I also have an mSATA disk from which I normally boot Windows 7 but that only boots successfully when  the original SATA disk is installed. Without that disk I just get a blank screen without any messages. The USB YUMI installer acts as a boot loader for FreeBSD and then FreeBSD boots up OK. I can't figure out what the BIOS sees at boot time, although  it does recognise three disks - the USB drive, the SSD and the mSATA, but it will only boot from USB.


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## wblock@ (Jul 23, 2014)

Please boot FreeBSD and show the output of `gpart show`.


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## balanga (Jul 23, 2014)

```
john@X220:~ % gpart show
=>           34   312581741  ada0  GPT  (149G)
             34           6        - free -     (3.0K)
             40         128     1  freebsd-boot  (64K)
            168   312475512     2  freebsd-ufs  (149G)
  312475680        106095          - free -      (52M)

=>           63  500118129  ada1  MBR  (238G)
             63      1985         - free -  (993K)
           2048 204800000      1  ntfs       (98G)
      204802048 295316144         - free -  (141G)

=>          63  500118129  diskid/DISK-000000001311036F2FDC  MBR  (238G)
            63       1985                                    - free -  (993K)
          2048  204800000                                 1  ntfs       (98G)
      204802048  295316144                                   - free -  (141G)
```


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## wblock@ (Jul 23, 2014)

How are you planning to choose which disk to boot?  Or will the SSD with FreeBSD be the only disk in the system?


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## balanga (Jul 23, 2014)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> How are you planning to choose which disk to boot?  Or will the SSD with FreeBSD be the only disk in the system?



My ThinkPad originally came with a 320GB disk which had Windows v7 installed. I subsequently installed an mSATA disk and installed Windows v7 on that. Now I have replaced the 320GB disk with SSD and installed FreeBSD on this disk. To boot FreeBSD I first need to boot from a USB stick and then select the disk with FreeBSD on it. Ideally I would like to install a boot manager so that I have the option of booting FreeBSD or Windows.

At the moment I have only installed FreeBSD to learn something about it. Eventually I hope to build a dedicated server and will be moving the SSD into that.


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## SirDice (Jul 23, 2014)

After you installed FreeBSD and rebooted did Windows 7 boot? If that's the case you may want to try EasyBCD (free for personal use). That will allow you to configure the boot selector from Windows. I've used it a couple of times to get a machine to dual boot.


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## balanga (Jul 23, 2014)

SirDice said:
			
		

> After you installed FreeBSD and rebooted did Windows 7 boot? If that's the case you may want to try EasyBCD (free for personal use). That will allow you to configure the boot selector from Windows. I've used it a couple of times to get a machine to dual boot.




No, the copy of Windows installed on my mSATA drive only boots when I re-install the original disk. Then on bootup I see Windows Boot Manager offering two versions of Windows 7, ie the original one on the hard disk and the one installed on mSATA. I don't really understand any of this...

I would prefer to have some alternative boot manager installed on the mSATA drive but am a little concerned about destroying a partition inadvertantly.


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## SirDice (Jul 23, 2014)

Sounds to me like the machine never really boots from the mSATA drive but instead boots from SATA and continues to load Windows from the mSATA disk. In other words, your SATA disk contains the system partition and the mSATA contains the boot partition. 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... =windows-7
(bloody confusing!)


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## balanga (Jul 23, 2014)

Thanks for pointing out this link. It explains exactly what is going...

It's not only confusing, but b. stupid!

Is there any way of creating the equivalent of this Windows 'System partition' on my SSD?

I'm getting very confused by all these different partition types.

Is the problem simply the absence of an 'active' partition when I have my SSD installed?


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## wblock@ (Jul 24, 2014)

Ah, it's a Thinkpad.  First, make certain you have the latest BIOS.  Then see https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?&t=42781.  The BIOS boot menu should then give that drive in the list to choose.  But it might not, and if that's the case, you'll have to reformat the SSD to use MBR.


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