# 12.1 DVD install failure on a MBR only system



## Zagzigger (Mar 29, 2020)

12.1 Release DVD will not boot (for me) on MBR only system. 
Is it looking for an EFI / UEFI bios?
What are my options?


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## ljboiler (Mar 29, 2020)

The ability to boot from MBR is not being removed.


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## Zagzigger (Mar 31, 2020)

Thanks for replying.
That means I hope that if I upgrade in the normal way from12.0 to 12.1 - I'll be OK.
What worries me is that the lua bug 
(*Bug 234031*      - loader can't traverse filesystem, LUA ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua )
remains on 12.1 release downloads
This is very disappointing - it seems this bug has been known for ages, and to find it on an official release is really surprising. 
I'll be very grateful for any thoughts on this issue and how to solve it.
Thanks again.


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## msplsh (Mar 31, 2020)

Partition layout of disks shouldn't affect the booting/not booting of the DVD since they aren't involved until the DVD is booted and trying to copy stuff to them.  You're going to have to poke around in your BIOS.


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## Emrion (Mar 31, 2020)

I installed some days ago a 12.1-RELEASE on a legacy BIOS machine with a MBR scheme, BSD slice and UFS. I got no trouble. I think that the encountered problem in this PR isn't well understood.


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## msplsh (Mar 31, 2020)

It's because people can't understand that /boot/lua/loader.lua is on the DVD and it's the DVD filesystem that the loader "can't traverse."  There's an underlying issue referenced in comment 55 that doesn't seem to be definitely resolved based on the uncertainty of "some systems" in the commit.


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## Zagzigger (Apr 2, 2020)

There is an ongoing discussion here which may help.








						Solved - LOADER.LUA file not found
					

I have burned at least 6 DVDs of the ISO FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso, using every iteration of method I can find, and attempting to boot from any of them BEGINS the boot process, but terminates with "?" and "...BOOT\LUA\LOADER.LUA not found", yet examining the distro finds that file and...




					forums.freebsd.org
				



I've asked for more specifics on bios settings - and maybe that'll give us more of a clue


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