# Boot problems with new install



## Sn33x (Dec 16, 2022)

gordon@ said:


> The loader actually looks for /etc/fstab and tries to find the root filesystem. Here's the comment from src/sys/boot/common/boot.c
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



I am sorry, I am kind of confused.  I just created a new install and the system boots and immediately hangs wanting to know which is the root - but the system booted, so, um doesn't it know where the root is?   I am completely new to FreeBSD but I am wondering why the system installed then sort-of wants to boot but doesn't know where it's own root is?

Thx/Bill


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## Alain De Vos (Dec 16, 2022)

Can you drop into a shell in multi-user ?


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## covacat (Dec 16, 2022)

loader uses bios/efi/uboot to read from the drive and boot the kernel
kernel needs a driver to access the filesystem
if the driver is not present or fails in some way you get in the situation you are in
mountroot>


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## Alain De Vos (Dec 16, 2022)

Issuing

```
kenv | egrep "currdev|mountfrom|kernel_path|kernelname"
```
can reveal some info.

Issuing

```
mount -av
```
If mount succeeds or fails.

To know your partitioning:

```
gpart show -p
```

You better use:

```
vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:/dev/yourbootslice"
```

Some doc:

```
vfs.root.mountfrom
                   Specify the root partition to mount.  For example:

                         vfs.root.mountfrom="ufs:/dev/da0s1a"

                   loader(8) automatically calculates the value of this
                   tunable from /etc/fstab from the partition the kernel was
                   loaded from.  The calculated value might be calculated
                   incorrectly when /etc/fstab is not available during
                   loader(8) startup (as during diskless booting from NFS), or
                   if a different device is desired by the user.  The
                   preferred value can be set in /loader.conf.

                   The value can also be overridden from the loader(8) command
                   line.  This is useful for system recovery when /etc/fstab
                   is damaged, lost, or read from the wrong partition.
```


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## Sn33x (Dec 16, 2022)

Thank you all for your help and suggestions but I think I was able to figure out the problem - I am on a laptop with an external Sabrent 4TB drive but the laptop drives efi partition is a little messy, so I backup and installed Freebsd on the laptop drive ... during that process it stopped and asked me if I wanted to clear out those old entries and create a new one, which I did.  Now I am just waiting for 706 KDE packages to download and install . lol

I will put Linux on the external drive once everything settles.
Thanks again 
Bill


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