# FreeBSD 8R on Thinkpad X61, USB CD-ROM Installation



## sotmg (Dec 14, 2009)

I downloaded the latest FreeBSD dvd image to install it on my Thinkpad X61 from a USB CD-ROM, it boots and starts the setup successfully but when I am asked to select the installation source it tells me that there is no disc in the CD-ROM, then when I restart the setup by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL, it finds the disc and starts formatting the slices, but when starts installing the base packages I get those "create/symlink failed, no inodes free" messages, and then the setup fails and I have to reboot the system with no OS installed.

My hard drive has two slices, the first is my root slice and its size is 368GB, the second is the swap and its size is 4GB, so I have enough disc space.

FreeBSD 7.2R installs successfully without problems, I know that I can install it and then upgrade to 8R, but I can't do that, I need to install from the dvd.

How can I fix this problem? is it because of the new USB stack? is there a boot parameter to use the old USB stack?

Thanks.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Dec 15, 2009)

```
load /boot/kernel/geom_bsd.ko
load /boot/kernel/geom_mbr.ko
load /boot/kernel/geom_label.ko
boot
```
I cannot visualize the exact problem, but if
those commands could fit in, anywhere, it
may be worth a try...
OTOH the last live CD I used had *some* paths
different...
maybe in this case a /dev prepended to the
initial install before the copy of base packages
... (purely guessing) if you are in a shell from
the install media.


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## tingo (Dec 15, 2009)

Hmm, I had this issue when installing 8.0R on a machine from an usb dvd burner. I thought the problem was that sysinstall was looking for 'acd0' instaed of 'cd0'.
Anyway, I used a workaround: used the memstick image, and installed from that.


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## kpedersen (Sep 8, 2010)

I am a necro poster. w00t!

I have just encountered this bug with my X61 and FreeBSD 8.0 and found that if you go into the sysinstall options and do rescan. When you go through the install, it completes smoothly.

This is not needed for FreeBSD 8.1 however, it seems to work fine.


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## hopla (Sep 10, 2010)

Hi,

I just had it happen with a FreeBSD 8.1 install. And I'm pretty sure I found the cause:

After creating the partition layout, the changes were somehow not committed to disk. But the installation ('extraction of base system') did continue, with / as installation root!!
Normally that would be /mnt/base/ (or something, can't remember exactly), but since the creation of the filesystems failed the rootfs didn't get mounted on /mnt/base, usr not on /mnt/base/usr, var not on /mnt/base/var, et cetera.

So, sysinstall was actually installing the base system to the in-memory disk on which it ran! And that memdisk doesn't have a lot of inodes, nor space.

Rebooting was the only option, because the whole install environment was borked since critical files where overwritten.

Somehow I managed to do the install again WITH the partition layout committed to disk and filesystems properly mounted. But I still don't know what went wrong the first time. I'dd call this a bug in sysinstall.

Hopla


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## Novo (Nov 27, 2011)

I downloaded the latest (8.2) FreeBSD dvd image and burned it. Then I did all the same things as with previous releases: partiotioning, selecting software to install (minimum installation), commit changes.... End got the same error, after that system rebooted automatically, and after repeating all that i've done before, freebsd FreeBSD were installed successfully. My HDD = 250GB, and all of space for freebsd FreeBSD, I know that system had enough of space. Before installation my HDD had no partitions an was fully clear. Earlier, with previous releases of freebsd FreeBSD (6.0, 7.2) I didn't have such problem.


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## YZMSQ (Nov 28, 2011)

Novo said:
			
		

> I downloaded the latest (8.2) FreeBSD dvd image and burned it. Then I did all the same things as with previous releases: partiotioning, selecting software to install (minimum installation), commit changes.... End got the same error, after that system rebooted automatically, and after repeating all that i've done before, freebsd FreeBSD were installed successfully. My HDD = 250GB, and all of space for freebsd FreeBSD, I know that system had enough of space. Before installation my HDD had no partitions an was fully clear. Earlier, with previous releases of freebsd FreeBSD (6.0, 7.2) I didn't have such problem.


So, why not give 9.0 RC2 a spin? It's time for that and maybe your problem will be fixed there. Furthermore, 9.0 has switched its default installation application to bsdinstall from the previous sysinstall, so the quirk encountered might fade away, hence.:stud


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