# Trying to mount root from X



## RobbyHF (Jan 12, 2013)

This is a problem I've had for a while and rather than describe it I thought it would be easier to record the problem. This happens only on boot of 9.0/9.1 and I imagine any further releases to come. This does not happen on 8.3 but for obvious reasons I want to move on. It happens only on this desktop, my other machines are 9.0. I tried the USB install via DD'd .IMG file and it booted perfectly and works like a charm but when you get to partitioning my SATA HDD does not exist, only my USB drive. When booting via DVD it says something about not being able to mount it.

I did notice that in the release notes for 9+ it says they improved SATA support which is ironic since that version happens to reject my SATA drive. Any help would be greatly appreciated. From what I've read up some people have said replacing their disc drive fixed the issue but how would that resolve the one about my SATA drive not being detected? I don't want to buy a new SATA drive. Linux distributions have been a breeze so if it really is my HDD with bad sectors and shit then why would it work at all for 8.3 and Linux distributions?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd2JwtjOohY


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## wblock@ (Jan 12, 2013)

"Something about" and the video don't really provide many details.  What happens when you press ? and Enter as it asks?  What old stuff is on the hard drive?


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## RobbyHF (Jan 12, 2013)

If I do as it asks it fails with error 19, I don't have old hardware I mean it's not outdated. I have tried using an external DVD drive via USB and it wouldn't even boot, it skipped straight to the boot loader. I have a triple core AMD processor, 4GB RAM, 9500GT Geforce card and as for the actual HDD there isn't anything but a Windows installation. The same thing happened when I had only a Debian installation and when I had a blank HDD.


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## wblock@ (Jan 12, 2013)

Too many things going on at once.

Nobody has suggested there's anything wrong with your hardware.

USB devices often need more time to be recognized.  So an external USB DVD can often be booted after waiting a few seconds and typing what it suggests at the mountroot prompt, the cd9660... line.

But if you can boot from a USB stick, there is no reason to bother with the USB DVD.

The next issue is the hard drive being seen by the installer.  Sometimes this is due to a setting in the BIOS, usually a mode setting for the controller that has settings like IDE/RAID/AHCI.  Sometimes it's due to old data on the hard drive, a corrupted MBR or RAID metadata.  That's why I asked.

Are you planning on using the drive with FreeBSD only, or trying to do a multi-boot configuration?


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## RobbyHF (Jan 12, 2013)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> Too many things going on at once.
> 
> Nobody has suggested there's anything wrong with your hardware.
> 
> ...



I'll have a reboot and check the settings although I was advised to do this before and I'm sure I didn't find anything, I may have not seen it though. I'd prefer to dualboot it with Windows as whenever colleagues come over they often want to play a game or something. That was what I entered, I got error 19 from it. Cheers in advance.


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## RobbyHF (Jan 13, 2013)

There was nothing in the settings about a IDE/RAID etc controller, any other suggestions?


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## RobbyHF (Jan 14, 2013)

I've decided to just go with OpenBSD, I have no problem with other BSD systems or any Linux distributions or even FreeBSD releases < 9.x so I think it's safe to say it's not on my end and there doesn't seem to be a solution. I put in a report a few months ago, maybe I'll try again next year when there is hopefully a new release.

Thanks for your time.


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