# won't boot after "freebsd-update" POST loop



## Crotalus (Aug 17, 2014)

I have two computers running version 9.1. I did a `freebsd-update -r 9.2-RELEASE upgrade` on one of the systems without any problems.

However I have a serious problem with the second system on the reboot. The computer goes through the POST and then it goes through the POST again. It is in a loop. It never shows the boot screen. Am I dead in the water and need to start with an fresh install or is there something that I can do to get it past the POST?

The "subversion" package was installed at the time.

Any ideas?

I could install 9.1 and restore everything from the backup. This could take some time or should I go with ver 10.0 which would require loading all the applications. 

Keith


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## Crotalus (Aug 17, 2014)

I reinstalled ver 9.1 from my last total backup as Aug 11 at 03:50 and everything appears to work. I do a total backup weekly and keep 4 copies of the backup.

The computer that was upgraded was an ABIT KN8 Ultra with a AMD Athlon 64 350+ 1 core 2.2 Ghz and 4Gb of memory. The only problem was that Firefox would not run with KDE 3.5. I reinstalled the Firefox port and everything is now happy.

The computer that had the problem was a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 with a AMD FX4130 4 core 3.8 Ghz with 8Gb of memory.

This is the environment of the offending upgrade. 
	
	



```
Copyright (c) 1992-2012 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE-p17 #0: Tue Jul  8 13:50:48 UTC 2014
    root@amd64-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64
CPU: AMD FX(tm)-4130 Quad-Core Processor             (3817.47-MHz K8-class CPU)
  Origin = "AuthenticAMD"  Id = 0x600f12  Family = 15  Model = 1  Stepping = 2
  Features=0x178bfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,HTT>
  Features2=0x1e98220b<SSE3,PCLMULQDQ,MON,SSSE3,CX16,SSE4.1,SSE4.2,POPCNT,AESNI,XSAVE,OSXSAVE,AVX>
  AMD Features=0x2e500800<SYSCALL,NX,MMX+,FFXSR,Page1GB,RDTSCP,LM>
  AMD Features2=0x1c9bfff<LAHF,CMP,SVM,ExtAPIC,CR8,ABM,SSE4A,MAS,Prefetch,OSVW,IBS,XOP,SKINIT,WDT,LWP,FMA4,NodeId,Topology,<b23>,<b24>>
  TSC: P-state invariant, performance statistics
real memory  = 8589934592 (8192 MB)
avail memory = 8189779968 (7810 MB)
```

I don't have any idea what happened during the upgrade as it went well to the point of requesting a reboot. It was the reboot that put it in a POST loop. It appears that I will live with 9.1 for a very long time unless there is a reason for the disaster that can be rectified so an upgrade can be performed.

Keith


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## wblock@ (Aug 18, 2014)

Does the Gigabyte motherboard have UEFI?


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## Crotalus (Aug 18, 2014)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> Does the Gigabyte motherboard have UEFI?


Here is all the bios options regarding boot up.

OS Type - Allows you to select the operating system to be installed.
>>>>> Windows 8
>>>>> Other (default)

CSM Support - Enables or disables UEFI CSM to support a legacy PC boot process.
>>>>> Always Enables UEFI CSM (default)
>>>>> Disables UEFI CSM and supports UEFI BIOS boot process only
Note: This item is configurable only when OS Type is set to Windows 8

Boot Mode Selection - Allows you to select type of operating system to boot
>>>>> UEFI and Legacy - allows support for legacy support ROM or UEFI ROM (default)
>>>>> Legacy only - allows booting operating system only for legacy Option ROM
>>>>> UEFI only - allows booting from operating system only for UEFI Option ROM
Note: This item is configurable only when CSM Support is set to Always

Storage Boot Option Control - Allows UEFI or Legacy option ROM for storage default controller
>>>>> Disabled - Disables option ROM
>>>>> Legacy Only - Enables legacy option ROM only (default)
>>>>> UEFI Only - Enables UEFI option ROM only
>>>>> Legacy First - Enables legacy option ROM first
>>>>> UEFI First - Enables UEFI option ROM first

Other PCI Device ROM Priority - Allows you to select wheather to enables the UEFI or Legacy option ROM for PCI device controller other than the LAN, storage device, and graphics controllers
>>>>> Legacy OpROM - Enables legacy option ROM only
>>>>> UEFI OpRom - Enables UEFI option ROM only (default)

I let the BIOS setup to go to all of the defaults. I did try with the 9.1 restore to set the Boot Mode to UEFI only and it displayed a screen telling me that no boot device was found and press F2 to enter Bios setup. The order of the boot is the CD drive first and the hard drives second.


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## wblock@ (Aug 18, 2014)

So yes, it does have UEFI.  For this to boot FreeBSD, "legacy" booting must be enabled in Boot Mode Selection.  There may be other things needed also.


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## Crotalus (Aug 20, 2014)

Does lead you to believe that there are changes that I must put in the BIOS to work? If so I don't know what they would be as ver 9.1 boots without any problems.


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## wblock@ (Aug 20, 2014)

If it were me, I'd try setting Boot Mode Selection to Legacy only.


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## Crotalus (Aug 31, 2014)

I got a chance to do some work on this problem. I cloned my boot drive to another drive.

Boot drive ----> Western Digital (VelociRapter) 250GB WD2500HHTZ SATA-3 600MB/sec 
Clone drive ---> Hitachi HDT722525DLAT80 250GB ULTA ATA 133 manufactured JAN 2005

I swapped out the boot drive and booted from the clone. It boots when BIOS is set to "Legacy" and also when set to "UEFI and Legacy" without any problems. So the next step was to swap back the original boot drive and set the BIOS to "Legacy" only. The system booted the ver 9.1 with out any problems. My next step was to do the upgrade to Ver 9.2. When the reboot was required the result was the POST loop again. It does this with the boot set to "Legacy". I now need to install ver 9.1 and restore from the backups again. This is a pain.

What is the difference in the SATA drive that would be causing this?
Is it possible to go from ver 9.1 to 9.3 without the intermediate step to ver 9.2?

The ver 9.2 did fix a problem that I had in ver 9.1. That problem was the USB 3 devices would not work because they would not be recognized.

I have never had an upgrade did not have problems. I always had to reinstall third party software but never this kind of a problem.

Any ideas?

Keith


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