# FreeBSD 11 Install ends in black screen



## photor-freebsd (Oct 11, 2016)

Hello Forum,

FreeBSD 11 Install ends in black screen . This is true for Upgrade from lower version (10.3) as well as if I try to boot from fresh downloaded CD- and DVD-ISO (SHA checksums are correct) - so I think images are correct. Booting and installing FreeBSD 8.1 works on this machine; upgrading to 9.3 went OK. But obvously, I want to go to more uptodate versions. 

Hardware: IBM Thinkpad X24 with CD/DVD-drive (plus floppy ) in a kind of docking station. Memory: 380 MB of RAM, HDD: 40 GB. There is one USB slot but the BIOS does not allow to boot from USB-drive (neither USB-CDRom nor USB stick  - booting from CDRom is the only way I think).

Here is the output of `dmesg` created with FixIt from FreeBSD 8.1-CD:

```
Copyright (c) 1992-2010 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 8.1-RELEASE #0: Mon Jul 19 02:55:53 UTC 2010
    root@almeida.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) III Mobile CPU      1133MHz (1129.58-MHz 686-class CPU)
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x6b1  Family = 6  Model = b  Stepping = 1
  Features=0x383f9ff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,MMX,FXSR,SSE>
real memory  = 402063360 (383 MB)
avail memory = 374448128 (357 MB)
kbd1 at kbdmux0
acpi0: <IBM TP-1D> on motherboard
acpi0: [ITHREAD]
acpi_ec_ecdt_probe: can't get handle
ACPI Error: No handler for Region [ECOR] (0xc2e46980) [EmbeddedControl] (20100331/evregion-487)
ACPI Error: Region EmbeddedControl(0x3) has no handler (20100331/exfldio-383)
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__._INI] (Node 0xc2e4a8a0), AE_NOT_EXIST
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
ACPI Error: No handler for Region [ECOR] (0xc2e46980) [EmbeddedControl] (20100331/evregion-487)
ACPI Error: Region EmbeddedControl(0x3) has no handler (20100331/exfldio-383)
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BGID] (Node 0xc2e535a0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BINI] (Node 0xc2e535c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BSTA] (Node 0xc2e53600), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (uteval-0318): Method execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error: No handler for Region [ECOR] (0xc2e46980) [EmbeddedControl] (20100331/evregion-487)
ACPI Error: Region EmbeddedControl(0x3) has no handler (20100331/exfldio-383)
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BGID] (Node 0xc2e535a0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BINI] (Node 0xc2e535c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BSTA] (Node 0xc2e53600), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (uteval-0318): Method execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error: No handler for Region [ECOR] (0xc2e46980) [EmbeddedControl] (20100331/evregion-487)
ACPI Error: Region EmbeddedControl(0x3) has no handler (20100331/exfldio-383)
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BGID] (Node 0xc2e535a0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BINI] (Node 0xc2e535c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BSTA] (Node 0xc2e53600), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (uteval-0318): Method execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error: No handler for Region [ECOR] (0xc2e46980) [EmbeddedControl] (20100331/evregion-487)
ACPI Error: Region EmbeddedControl(0x3) has no handler (20100331/exfldio-383)
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BGID] (Node 0xc2e535a0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BINI] (Node 0xc2e535c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BSTA] (Node 0xc2e53600), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (uteval-0318): Method execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error: No handler for Region [ECOR] (0xc2e46980) [EmbeddedControl] (20100331/evregion-487)
ACPI Error: Region EmbeddedControl(0x3) has no handler (20100331/exfldio-383)
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BGID] (Node 0xc2e535a0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BINI] (Node 0xc2e535c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BSTA] (Node 0xc2e53600), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (uteval-0318): Method execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error: No handler for Region [ECOR] (0xc2e46980) [EmbeddedControl] (20100331/evregion-487)
ACPI Error: Region EmbeddedControl(0x3) has no handler (20100331/exfldio-383)
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BGID] (Node 0xc2e535a0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BINI] (Node 0xc2e535c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BSTA] (Node 0xc2e53600), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (uteval-0318): Method execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error: No handler for Region [ECOR] (0xc2e46980) [EmbeddedControl] (20100331/evregion-487)
ACPI Error: Region EmbeddedControl(0x3) has no handler (20100331/exfldio-383)
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BGID] (Node 0xc2e535a0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BINI] (Node 0xc2e535c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.LPC_.EC__.BSTA] (Node 0xc2e53600), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (psparse-0633): Method parse/execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
ACPI Error (uteval-0318): Method execution failed [\\_SB_.PCI0.IDE0.SCND.MSTR._STA] (Node 0xc2e534c0), AE_NOT_EXIST
acpi0: reservation of 0, a0000 (3) failed
acpi0: reservation of 100000, 17f00000 (3) failed
Timecounter "ACPI-fast" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x1008-0x100b on acpi0
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
acpi_ec0: <Embedded Controller: GPE 0x1c> port 0x62,0x66 on acpi0
acpi_lid0: <Control Method Lid Switch> on acpi0
acpi_button0: <Sleep Button> on acpi0
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0
agp0: <Intel 82830 host to AGP bridge> on hostb0
pcib1: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0
pci1: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib1
vgapci0: <VGA-compatible display> port 0x2000-0x20ff mem 0xe0000000-0xe7ffffff,0xc0100000-0xc010ffff irq 11 at device 0.0 on pci1
uhci0: <Intel 82801CA/CAM (ICH3) USB controller USB-A> port 0x1800-0x181f irq 11 at device 29.0 on pci0
uhci0: [ITHREAD]
usbus0: <Intel 82801CA/CAM (ICH3) USB controller USB-A> on uhci0
uhci1: <Intel 82801CA/CAM (ICH3) USB controller USB-B> port 0x1820-0x183f irq 11 at device 29.1 on pci0
uhci1: [ITHREAD]
usbus1: <Intel 82801CA/CAM (ICH3) USB controller USB-B> on uhci1
uhci2: <Intel 82801CA/CAM (ICH3) USB controller USB-C> port 0x1840-0x185f irq 11 at device 29.2 on pci0
uhci2: [ITHREAD]
usbus2: <Intel 82801CA/CAM (ICH3) USB controller USB-C> on uhci2
pcib2: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 30.0 on pci0
pci2: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib2
cbb0: <RF5C476 PCI-CardBus Bridge> mem 0x50000000-0x50000fff irq 11 at device 3.0 on pci2
cardbus0: <CardBus bus> on cbb0
pccard0: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb0
cbb0: [FILTER]
cbb1: <RF5C476 PCI-CardBus Bridge> mem 0x50100000-0x50100fff irq 11 at device 3.1 on pci2
cardbus1: <CardBus bus> on cbb1
pccard1: <16-bit PCCard bus> on cbb1
cbb1: [FILTER]
pci2: <simple comms> at device 5.0 (no driver attached)
fxp0: <Intel 82801CAM (ICH3) Pro/100 VE Ethernet> port 0x7400-0x743f mem 0xc0200000-0xc0200fff irq 11 at device 8.0 on pci2
miibus0: <MII bus> on fxp0
inphy0: <i82562ET 10/100 media interface> PHY 1 on miibus0
inphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
fxp0: Ethernet address: 00:d0:59:d7:21:39
fxp0: [ITHREAD]
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 31.0 on pci0
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0
atapci0: <Intel ICH3 UDMA100 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0x1860-0x186f at device 31.1 on pci0
ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
ata0: [ITHREAD]
ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
ata1: [ITHREAD]
pci0: <serial bus, SMBus> at device 31.3 (no driver attached)
pci0: <multimedia, audio> at device 31.5 (no driver attached)
acpi_tz0: <Thermal Zone> on acpi0
atrtc0: <AT realtime clock> port 0x70-0x71 irq 8 on acpi0
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
atkbd0: [ITHREAD]
psm0: <PS/2 Mouse> irq 12 on atkbdc0
psm0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
psm0: [ITHREAD]
psm0: model Generic PS/2 mouse, device ID 0
uart0: <16550 or compatible> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0
uart0: [FILTER]
ppc0: <Parallel port> port 0x3bc-0x3be irq 7 on acpi0
ppc0: Generic chipset (NIBBLE-only) in COMPATIBLE mode
ppc0: [ITHREAD]
ppbus0: <Parallel port bus> on ppc0
plip0: <PLIP network interface> on ppbus0
plip0: [ITHREAD]
lpt0: <Printer> on ppbus0
lpt0: [ITHREAD]
lpt0: Interrupt-driven port
ppi0: <Parallel I/O> on ppbus0
battery0: <ACPI Control Method Battery> on acpi0
acpi_acad0: <AC Adapter> on acpi0
pmtimer0 on isa0
orm0: <ISA Option ROMs> at iomem 0xc0000-0xcbfff,0xcc000-0xccfff,0xcd000-0xcdfff,0xdc000-0xdffff,0xe0000-0xeffff pnpid ORM0000 on isa0
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
acpi_perf0: <ACPI CPU Frequency Control> on cpu0
acpi_throttle0: <ACPI CPU Throttling> on cpu0
Timecounter "TSC" frequency 1129577514 Hz quality 800
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec
md0: Preloaded image </boot/mfsroot> 4423680 bytes at 0xc0fb5504
usbus0: 12Mbps Full Speed USB v1.0
usbus1: 12Mbps Full Speed USB v1.0
usbus2: 12Mbps Full Speed USB v1.0
ugen0.1: <Intel> at usbus0
uhub0: <Intel UHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus0
ugen1.1: <Intel> at usbus1
uhub1: <Intel UHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus1
ugen2.1: <Intel> at usbus2
uhub2: <Intel UHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus2
ad0: 38154MB <TOSHIBA MK4026GAX PA100U> at ata0-master UDMA100 
uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
uhub1: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
uhub2: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered
acd0: DVDROM <HITACHI DVD-ROM GD-S200/0034> at ata1-master UDMA33 
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/md0
ugen1.2: <SanDisk> at usbus1
umass0: <SanDisk Cruzer Blade, class 0/0, rev 2.00/1.26, addr 2> on usbus1
umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x0000
umass0:0:0:-1: Attached to scbus0
da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0
da0: <SanDisk Cruzer Blade 1.26> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-6 device 
da0: 1.000MB/s transfers
da0: 30532MB (62530624 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 3892C)
GEOM: da0: partition 1 does not start on a track boundary.
GEOM: da0: partition 1 does not end on a track boundary.
GEOM: da0: partition 1 does not start on a track boundary.
GEOM: da0: partition 1 does not end on a track boundary.
ugen1.2: <SanDisk> at usbus1 (disconnected)
umass0: at uhub1, port 1, addr 2 (disconnected)
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): lost device
(da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): removing device entry
```
Maybe some expert has an idea what causes this behaviour with FreeBSD 11.0. Is there a chance to boot it? If not, the project "FreeBSD on X24" is dead  
If more info is needed, I (hopefully) can provide of course.

Ciao,

Photor


----------



## SirDice (Oct 11, 2016)

photor-freebsd said:


> FreeBSD 11 Install ends in black screen


What do you mean? The installer starts and works but after the final reboot nothing happens?


----------



## photor-freebsd (Oct 11, 2016)

Hello SirDice,

No! No chance to reach this: I put in the disk, Beastie apears, I press <RETURN> and "Booting" is the last thing I can see - then the screen gets black and nothing more happens  I do not get no further messages (which usually appear here). This is the same with CDRom[1] or DVD[2] both downloaded today from [3].

The same I observed at the weekend after upgrading from 10.3 to 11.0 using `freebsd-update`. I thought, something went wrong during update and did a rollback, which left the installed system in an inconsistent state. So, I thought, the best is to do a clean reinstall with 11.0. 
But, as I see the same now I have some doubts that my hardware will run with FreeBSD later than 10.3. This would be a knock-out for FreeBSD at this point.

I still have some hope.  But I need help.

Photor

PS: the `dmesg`-output is taken from FreeBSD 8.1 booted into FixIt. It is not what FreeBSD 11.0 would show. I can try to get the same from the 10.3-Installation if that helps.

[1] FreeBSD-11.0-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso
[2] FreeBSD-11.0-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso
[3] ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/i386/ISO-IMAGES/11.0/


----------



## nslay (Oct 11, 2016)

Sounds like the new video terminal stuff in FreeBSD 11. There may be a way to disable it in the loader.

I'm not liking it myself. When I try to boot single user mode, I see the kernel output but no prompt ever appears for the root shell. When I boot multi-user mode, it takes a relatively long time for the login prompt to appear.

EDIT:
Try escaping into the loader (I think you press shift before it pops up) and manually feed some of the loader.conf(5) options in:
syscons(4)
vt(4)

Namely

kern.vty=sc

to make it use the old syscons(4) console.


----------



## photor-freebsd (Oct 13, 2016)

Sorry. Could not find time before.  

Could not get it work. <SHIFT> and <ESC> did not work, so no chance to type the above in. There is also an option in the beastie-menu to get to the loader with prompt "OK". At this stage I was able to type 

```
OK kern.vty=sc
kern.vty=sc not found
OK
```
Booting forward ends as described above -> black screen and CDRom stops spinning after some seconds. I can open it (means it is not mounted).

Frustrated and sad,

Photor


----------



## ASX (Oct 13, 2016)

photor-freebsd said:


> Frustrated and sad,


Why not remain with 10.3 ? and may be experimenting a few new settings like those introduced in FreeBSD 11 ?


----------



## possamai (Oct 13, 2016)

nslay said:


> Sounds like the new video terminal stuff in FreeBSD 11. There may be a way to disable it in the loader.
> 
> I'm not liking it myself. When I try to boot single user mode, I see the kernel output but no prompt ever appears for the root shell. When I boot multi-user mode, it takes a relatively long time for the login prompt to appear.
> 
> ...



It did help me to get my console resolution back to something useful so thanks 
I should dive into the new console settings someday soon......


----------



## kpa (Oct 13, 2016)

possamai said:


> It did help me to get my console resolution back to something useful so thanks
> I should dive into the new console settings someday soon......



File a PR at https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi if you find anything useful information on how to get the new VT console working on your system, the VT console is still quite new and in need of testing on many edge case systems.


----------



## photor-freebsd (Oct 14, 2016)

ASX said:


> Why not remain with 10.3 ? and may be experimenting a few new settings like those introduced in FreeBSD 11 ?


As I do not want to be trapped in 10.3 I have to update some day. At the moment it looks like

the CDRom (in the docking station) has some trouble: trying to boot with docking station leads to an endless loop; I have to boot from that if something goes wrong and I need FixIt; the only way then, use old (maybe very old) CD 
booting from USB - Stick or CDRom - is not possible. So, I can never boot something higher than 10.3 (and again ... old CD for FixIt)
additional problems with console now 
seems that this hardware is too old for FreeBSD. Even though from my former experience FreeBSD runs much smoother than Linux it is very likely that it goes back to Arch in some weeks, if nothing else helps. 

Ciao,

Photor


----------



## nslay (Oct 14, 2016)

https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/boot-introduction.html


photor-freebsd said:


> Sorry. Could not find time before.
> 
> Could not get it work. <SHIFT> and <ESC> did not work, so no chance to type the above in. There is also an option in the beastie-menu to get to the loader with prompt "OK". At this stage I was able to type
> 
> ...



I've never had to do this myself. Try using `set` command. For example:

```
set kern.vty=sc
```

Reference:
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/boot-introduction.html
Section 12.2.3 "Stage Three"

EDIT:
You may have to put quotes on the value as per other examples in that section. More specifically:

```
set kern.vty="sc"
```


----------



## ASX (Oct 14, 2016)

What I was suggesting is to install 10.3, which seems to work, and test things like kern.vty=vt in FreeBSD 10.3, and others, *until you find what is the problem*.

Additionally you can get some more info while running 10.3, like dmesg and other hints, which is something you can't do from FreeBSD 11 right now.

One settings that changed in 10.2 and affected one old laptop here, was acpi related: (/boot/device.hints)

```
hint.acpi_throttle.0.disabled="1"       # "1" from 10.2 onward, "0" previously.
```
In my specific case that setting prevent to boot the kernel ... You might try to revert that too.


----------



## photor-freebsd (Oct 14, 2016)

nslay said:


> https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/boot-introduction.html
> EDIT:
> You may have to put quotes on the value as per other examples in that section. More specifically:
> 
> ...



Thank you nslay, That brings me one step forward: I can read something when booting 11.0-CDRom .  But unfortunately, the booting is stuck at exactly the same loop as before

```
(aprobe0:ata1:0:1:0): ATAPI_IDENTIFY. ACB: a1 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00
(aprobe0:ata1:0:1:0): CAM status: Command timeout
(aprobe0:ata1:0:1:0): Retrying command
... (repeated several times; sometimes other commands are spread in ) ...
(aprobe0:ata1:0:1:0): Error 5, Retries exhausetd
```
This goes on.

As I boot from CDRom I cannot change any file. So, the question is, can I set this hint proposed by ASX at the loader-prompt, too?

EDIT: tried the same with 10.3 CDRom with exactly the same result. Also tried to give the hint at loader prompt; it has no effect.

I will try further (and study Handbook),

Photor


----------



## nslay (Oct 14, 2016)

My first impression when it comes to ATA/CAM messages like that is: Your CD/DVD is not written _correctly_. I've seen a lot of strange stuff when I've used optical media in the past, including CD-RW and DVD-RWs being readable by OS, but not when booting (not using *-RW fixes that). Or somehow the write speed causes the CD/DVD to not be readable during boot (using a lower write speed fixes that). Your situation is a little odd since the BIOS or UEFI or whatever can read the CD/DVD, but the kernel cannot.

A quick duckduckgo search produced this result:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...ausing-a-pause-during-the-system-device-probe

That looks almost exactly like your problem only that _Retry was blocked_ is a different message than _Retries exhausted_ like in your output. And the problem is more of a complaint about 30 second delays than being unable to boot. Even so, there are some loader tuneables you can try that are documented in da(4). The StackExchange post shows suggestions for reducing the timeout. I don't know how relevant it is. You can try _increasing_ it. You may also try increasing the try count. The options I might try are below


kern.cam.da.default_timeout=#
kern.cam.da.retry_count=#


It looks like this problem has existed since FreeBSD 9.1 It even has an old PR PR 173435. Stranger yet is that users experiencing those CAM messages are still able to boot even though there is an annoying delay. Maybe you give up too fast and need to wait 60+ seconds for it to recover and boot?

If none of that works, I would recommend using a USB stick and the memstick image to install FreeBSD 11.


----------



## Rosendoktor (Oct 15, 2016)

Photor,

I am writing this on an IBM x24 running FreeBSD 11.0, so the good news for you is, it works!

I came here 'cause I see all these "ACPI Error" during boot, which was not the case with 10.3., and because I am having a minor issue with freezes when pkg tries to unpack packages.

As far as I understand, you messed up the upgrade from 10.3 to 11.0 (happened to me as well, but I got a backup and was able to restore 10.3), and now you can't run the 11.0 installer.

A few points that may help you:

1. The x24 can boot from USB memory sticks and CD-ROMs. USB memory sticks are listed in "Hard Drive" in the BIOS, not as "Removable Devices" (for whatever reason), so you have to change the boot order there and restart with F10. It should then boot from USB.

2. If you also cannot run the 11.0 installer from a USB CD-ROM, you can try to reinstall a minimal 10.3 and then try the upgrade again. On my own x24, the upgrade worked fine (just follow exactly what freebsd-upgrade tells you to do next).

3. You can also try to remove the drive from the x24, plug it into another machine or a USB-PATA case, install 11.0, and then put it back into the x24.

4. If you have any other 11.0 i386 installation on any machine, you can try to copy this over onto the partitioned x24 drive with rsync. Then install and update grub on that drive to make it bootable (may need chroot).

Good luck!


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## photor-freebsd (Oct 16, 2016)

Rosendoktor said:


> I am writing this on an IBM x24 running FreeBSD 11.0, so the good news for you is, it works!


Ok. Positive input.  I get back some hope.



Rosendoktor said:


> A few points that may help you:
> 
> 1. The x24 can boot from USB memory sticks and CD-ROMs. USB memory sticks are listed in "Hard Drive" in the BIOS, not as "Removable Devices" (for whatever reason), so you have to change the boot order there and restart with F10. It should then boot from USB.


I still cannot believe that (but want to be convinced that I can): In the BIOS I get the following (a USB-Stick with 10.3-img inserted in USB-slot):

```
Boot
    CD-ROM Drive
    Removable Devices
   -Hard Drive
        TOSHIBA MK4026GAX-(PM)
    Network Boot
    IBA 4.0.22 Slot 0240
```
(the last one is not clear to me - maybe the floppy in the dock). CDRom was open, so no boot from that. Next would be "Removable Devices". As you told, this is not the Stick. The "HardDrive" shows just the internal hard drive but nothing more. So, changing the order would not help.

And booting ends in starting the hard drives system (which is a 9.0 updated using `freebsd-update` from a freshly installed 8.1 from magazine CDROM in the meanwhile)



Rosendoktor said:


> 2. If you also cannot run the 11.0 installer from a USB CD-ROM, you can try to reinstall a minimal 10.3 and then try the upgrade again. On my own x24, the upgrade worked fine (just follow exactly what freebsd-upgrade tells you to do next).


Sorry. But at the moment I have doubts about this.



Rosendoktor said:


> 3. You can also try to remove the drive from the x24, plug it into another machine or a USB-PATA case, install 11.0, and then put it back into the x24.
> 
> 4. If you have any other 11.0 i386 installation on any machine, you can try to copy this over onto the partitioned x24 drive with rsync. Then install and update grub on that drive to make it bootable (may need chroot).


Unfortunately, I do not have this option at the moment.

I will come back with more information tomorrow. Maybe the 9.0-installation allows to gain some system parameter about hardware.

Ciao,

Photor


PS: some infor from the BIOS (maybe this is too old):

```
BIOS Version:                 1.26 (1DET64WW)
BIOS Date (Year-Month-Day):   2002-05-22
Embeded Controller Version:   1.24
```


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## Rosendoktor (Oct 16, 2016)

Here's my BIOS info:


```
BIOS Version:                 1.29 (1DET67WW)
BIOS Date (Year-Month-Day):   2002-12-18
Embeded Controller Version:   1.26
```

Version 1.32 is available here: http://thinkpads.com/support/Thinkpad-Drivers/download.lenovo.com/lenovo/content/ddfm/X23.html

All the USB sticks I tried show up in "Hard Drive" and can be booted (if bootable, of course). The x24 also boots from USB DVD just by pressing F12 during early boot and selecting "CD-ROM Drive", no BIOS changes needed.

Maybe you really should think about a BIOS upgrade? 


Regarding the upgrade from 10.3 to 11.0, this is what I did:

1. Run "freebsd-update" and "pkg upgrade" to get all the latest updates in 10.3
2. Run "freebsd-update -r 11.0-RELEASE upgrade"
3. When it stops installing, reboot with the new 11.0 Kernel
4. Run "freebsd-update install" again
5. When it stops, run "pkg-static install -f pkg" to get latest pkg version
6. Run "pkg upgrade" to reinstall all packages
7. Recompile and reinstall all installed ports (I skipped that, no ports installed)
8. run "freebsd-update install" again
9. Reboot
10. Finished, 11.0-RELEASE installed and running

Any mistake in these steps leads to an inconsistent system (e.g., booting the wrong kernel, that's why I messed it up two times, or not running "pkg update" at the right point, that's why I messed it up a third time).

Relevant and x24 specific lines from loader.conf:

```
kern.vty="vt"
radeonkms_load="YES"
radeonkmsfw_R100_cp_load="YES"
```

Good luck! Nice to know somebody else out there is crazy enough installing lates OS Versions on that ancient machine 

Robert


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## ASX (Oct 17, 2016)

Rosendoktor said:


> Regarding the upgrade from 10.3 to 11.0, this is what I did:
> 
> 1. Run "freebsd-update" and "pkg upgrade" to get all the latest updates in 10.3
> 2. Run "freebsd-update -r 11.0-RELEASE upgrade"
> ...



Apparently one step is missing:
http://www.at.freebsd.org/releases/11.0R/announce.html
*"Upgrading from FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE and Earlier*

*    # : > /usr/bin/bspatch*
      # freebsd-update upgrade -r 11.0-RELEASE
      # freebsd-update install
      <reboot the system>
      # freebsd-update install
      <rebuild third-party software>
      # freebsd-update install"


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## photor-freebsd (Oct 17, 2016)

Rosendoktor said:


> Here's my BIOS info:
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


Hm. Maybe, I should really think about that BIOS upgrade. Booting from USB is a great feature/advantage. I will take some counsels with my pillow (is this the right idiom?) before I do that.



Rosendoktor said:


> Good luck! Nice to know somebody else out there is crazy enough installing lates OS Versions on that ancient machine


This is not an "ancient" machine. Maybe you can call it "a little bit" old-fashioned

Thank you for your hints, Robert (and all the others, of course). I will report here.

Ciao,

Photor


----------



## Rosendoktor (Oct 17, 2016)

Regarding USB/CD boot, check what dmidecode tells you about this.

That's what it says on my machine:


```
root@alderamin:/usr/home/rsenger# dmidecode
# dmidecode 3.0
Scanning /dev/mem for entry point.
SMBIOS version fixup (2.31 -> 2.3).
SMBIOS 2.3 present.
48 structures occupying 1738 bytes.
Table at 0x27F7C000.

Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 20 bytes
BIOS Information
   Vendor: IBM
   Version: 1DET67WW (1.29 )
   Release Date: 12/18/2002
   Address: 0xDC000
   Runtime Size: 144 kB
   ROM Size: 512 kB
   Characteristics:
       PCI is supported
       PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported
       PNP is supported
       APM is supported
       BIOS is upgradeable
       BIOS shadowing is allowed
       ESCD support is available
       [b]Boot from CD is supported
       Selectable boot is supported
       Boot from PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported[/b]
       EDD is supported
       3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
       Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
       8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
       Serial services are supported (int 14h)
       Printer services are supported (int 17h)
       CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
       ACPI is supported
       AGP is supported
       LS-120 boot is supported
       [b]BIOS boot specification is supported[/b]

[...] Tons of other stuff [...]
```


----------



## photor-freebsd (Oct 19, 2016)

Hello Forum,

in the meantime I have upgraded to FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE using `freebsd-upgrade`-method. This went smoother than the first time
This now boots without the dock (no CDROM at the moment). Then I decided to install the sources to have the possibility to create a costum kernel and update with that (`make buildworl`, `make buildkernel`, `make installkernel`, `make installworld`, `mergemaster`).

So I did:

```
# svn checkout https://svn.FreeBSD.org/base/stable/10 /usr/src
# svn checkout https://svn.FreeBSD.org/ports/head /usr/ports
# svn checkout https://svn.FreeBSD.org/doc/head /usr/doc
```
To check this I wanted to install a port and I got the following:

```
# cd /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof/
# make install
make: "/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk" line 5161: warning: duplicate script for target "-depends" ignored
... : using previous script for "-depends" defined here
...
===>  lsof-4.84A,5 improper use of USE_PERL5.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: stopped in /usr/ports/sysutils/lsof
```

So, what happened here? Again a little bit confused ,

Photor

PS: also, no chance to build/run `dmidecode`


----------

