# FreeBSD won't boot when manually partitioning the disk



## Locosx (Oct 22, 2020)

Hello,
I don't understand why FreeBSD won't boot when I choose to manually partition the disk during the installation process. The FreeBSD installer does the following when choosing "Auto (UFS)":





However, if I try to manually partition it like this:




FreeBSD won't boot afterwards:




I thought it was because I was putting the swap partition first, so I tried manually creating a freebsd-boot partition first like this:




But that won't work either, because that yields an "Invalid argument" error. Could anyone tell me why the boot process fails when I manually partition it with swap as the first partition? And why can't a freebsd-boot partition be created in MBR? I can create it without troubles using GPT.

Thanks in advance.


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## Emrion (Oct 22, 2020)

_freebsd-boot_ is only used for GPT scheme. See gpart(8)
It's the second stage after pmbr when you boot in legacy BIOS mode (or CSM) on a GPT scheme.

Your first question needs more reflexion. What is the machine you use? qemu VM ?


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## Locosx (Oct 22, 2020)

Emrion said:


> _freebsd-boot_ is only used for GPT scheme. See gpart(8)
> It's the second stage after pmbr when you boot in legacy BIOS mode (or CSM) on a GPT scheme.


Ah, I see. That explains why I'm allowed to creat it on a GTP scheme.



Emrion said:


> Your first question needs more reflexion. What is the machine you use? qemu VM ?


Yes, it is a virtual machine. More specifically, a KVM guest.


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## Emrion (Oct 23, 2020)

The outputs you see come from boot2 program. It's supposed to load /boot/loader. I don't know why it fails (of course, this file exists). Maybe it expects that it is located in the first partition or there is too much space between boot2 and this file (4 GB in your case) or it can be another reason.

I suggest you to stick to GPT scheme and, if possible, EFI booting. You will have less trouble.


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## a6h (Oct 23, 2020)

From the Handbook https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/disk-organization.html


> Some partitions have certain conventions associated with them:
> Partition "a": Normally contains the root file system.
> Partition "b": Normally contains swap space.


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