# Server does not boot after install



## mururoa (Jan 29, 2014)

I try to install 10.0 release with ZFS on MBR (this server does not support GPT).
Install is okay but after that the server cant boot. It gets stuck on F1 FreeBSD F6 PXE and stays there.
I suspect that the problem may be bootcode not installed properly.
Somewhere during the partitioning `gpart` complains that partition is no aligned on 4096 even if I specify -a 4k.
After partitioning I have on ada0 :


```
63 1953525105 ada0 MBR (932G)
63 63  - free - (32K)
126 1953524979 1 freebsd (active) (932G)
1953525105 63 - free - (32K)
```

and on ada0s1


```
0 1953524979 ada0s1 BSD (932G)
0 2 - free - (1.0K)
2 1944059904 1 freebsd-zfs (927G)
1944059906 9465072 2 freebsd-swap (4.5G)
1953524970 1 - free - (512B)
```

And I install bootcode with :


```
gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot0 ada0
dd if=/boot/zfsboot of=/dev/ada0s1 count=1
dd if=/boot/zfsboot of=/dev/ada0s1a skip=1 seek=1024
```

What should I correct ?


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## trh411 (Jan 29, 2014)

mururoa said:
			
		

> And I install bootcode with :
> 
> ```
> gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot0 ada0
> ...


Nothing. Those are the correct commands for installing the boot code on MBR. What happens if you press <F1> or <RETURN> when

```
F1 FreeBSD F6 PXE
```
is displayed?


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## mururoa (Jan 30, 2014)

Nothing happens. Same display ad vitam. Even no time counter.
I was thinking that maybe first or second dd should have been shifted because of 'holes' ( - free - ) of various sizes.


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## SirDice (Jan 30, 2014)

Use the normal boot code. As far as I know the FreeBSD boot manager can't boot ZFS. Since there's only one OS on the disks a boot manager is pretty pointless anyway.


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## mururoa (Jan 30, 2014)

I tried that too (normal/simple boot code) :

`gpart bootcode -b /boot/mbr ada0
gpart set -a active -i 1 ada0`

But no more boot with that.

The system is installed and if I use the install key and go to shell I can 'reload' the zfs pool on the disk and all is there. It just cant boot properly.


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## mururoa (Jan 30, 2014)

Just to mention that I had FreeBSD 10.0 RC5 installed on that computer but the disk failed (500 GB WD) and I replaced it with a 1 TB WD Red. I have about no options in BIOS outside hour, Sata drive config (IDE or AHCI) and boot order list.


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## wblock@ (Jan 30, 2014)

What happens when you try GPT?


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## mururoa (Jan 31, 2014)

WIth GPT it just can't find anything to boot. But I tried GPT with previous 500 GB drive. Can it be MBR for some smaller drives and GPT for bigger ones or 4k formatted ones?


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## wblock@ (Jan 31, 2014)

If GPT does not work, it's usually the fault of the BIOS.  If it does work, the size or block size of the drive do not matter.

It sounds like the GPT bootcode worked, but without the exact error, it's hard to say.  It might be something that can be solved in /etc/fstab or with GPT labels.


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## trh411 (Jan 31, 2014)

What kind of server is it? Perhaps there is someone here who has experience with them and knows their quirks?


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## mururoa (Jan 31, 2014)

The server is a Giada i50 with 4 GB ram.

I tried again with the installer :
- GPT : the server cant find anything to boot
- MBR : the server does a reboot loop

In despair I tried Debian Kfreebsd and it was unable to boot too.
But the install key boot OK.
Maybe I can use install key as live system and disk as storage ?
How can I modify install key so that it boots directly to live without menu ?
Or maye I should replace the 1 TB HD since the previous 500 GB was able to boot.


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## mururoa (Feb 2, 2014)

I 'kinda' manage to solve this issue.
I replaced the 1 TB HD with an older 320 GB one I had in an external case.
I choosed MBR and no 4K aligned in the ZFS install and all were flawlessly.

My pov is that the Bios on that computer cant manage 4K sectors at all.
So I put inside an older real 512 sector HD and that solved the problem.

The good side is that with 320 GB and 4 GB ram I can go dedup all the way


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## wblock@ (Feb 3, 2014)

I'm not aware of any drives that report true 4K blocks yet.  There is one exception, some external drives, Seagate I think, do this to allow larger capacity than a FAT filesystem would normally support.

What brand and model was the 1T drive?


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## mururoa (Feb 3, 2014)

The drive is a 1 TB WD Red. Supposed to work 7/7 24/24.
I dont think that the drive report true 4k blocks but rather that the bios cant handle the trick of false 512 B blocks. It should but it dont.
The bios was build before the 4k drives becomes the standard and has not been updated since (theres is no update, first thing i checked).
I'm not aware of any 1 TB 2"1/2 drives with no 4k sectors.


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## wblock@ (Feb 3, 2014)

The BIOS should never see the 4K blocks, because the drive reports them as 512-byte blocks.  Some external USB adapters have poorly-written firmware that can't deal with drives over a given size, even as small as 500G.  It's possible the server BIOS has that kind of size limit bug.  I've used Red drives in a couple of systems that have no idea about 4K blocks.  The drives that survived the first week of use (not all did...) have been fine.


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## mururoa (Feb 5, 2014)

Btw even FreeNas was unable to use the drive even when the system was in an USB key and the disk was used only for data.
Freenas was unable to create a pool on that drive. I guess I could have created the pool myself and make FreeNas use it.
All in all I'm gonna SELL this PC now that there is a working 320 GB drive in it and any OS can be installed.
I go for a BRIX with vmware on it and FreeBSD as a VM.


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