# 7.1 install issues with filesystem creation



## murias (Jan 21, 2009)

I am trying to install 7.1 onto a machine that was running 6.1.  doing a simple upgrade is / was not an option due to wanting all the machines that are currently running and will be running needing to be identical, and well, they are currently not.

I have done a wide range of things and trouble shooting already.  I think it would take far too long to try to type out all I have tried.

From what I have read here on the forums I had reason to believe that I might have had bunk burns of the iso's .... tried both the dvd and the cd.

first error I get is when sysinstall loads the fdisk partition editor ... 
error is:
Warning: A geometry of 581463/16/63 for ad4 is incorrect.  Using a more likely geometry.... (txt clipped)
but then fdisk shows the proper geometry(?) of 36483/255/63.
I still go through and partition the drive, using the entire thing for FDSB.

select pkgs etc..

I used to get this warning both from dvd and cd iso's:

unable to find device node for /dev/ad4s1b in /dev
the creation of filesystems will be aborted

with my last burn of the dvd iso (which this time I checked the md5) I get this error:

Couldn't make filesystems properly.  Aborting!

Anyone got any ideas?
This machine with all hardware as it is was running 6.1.
I appreciate any advice, thoughts and questions that would assist me getting 7.1 onto this bad boy.  Been trying now for way too many days.

Cheers
Murias


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## ale (Jan 21, 2009)

murias said:
			
		

> unable to find device node for /dev/ad4s1b in /dev
> the creation of filesystems will be aborted


Are you creating labels properly?
Did you tried pressing 'A' (= Auto Defaults) in _Label - the disk Label editor_?


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## murias (Jan 22, 2009)

ale said:
			
		

> Are you creating labels properly?
> Did you tried pressing 'A' (= Auto Defaults) in _Label - the disk Label editor_?



yes I have tried this in a few of my numerous attempts, just in case.


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## Lawless (Feb 24, 2009)

I'm having this problem as well...

Tried two separate HDD's, an old WD 80GB and a newer Seagate 300GB ide drives. I've tried both as master on primary and secondary ide channels.

Sysinstall reports the geometry as 9729/255/63

WD Drive geometry, according to WD's website is, 16383/16/63

I keep getting 'couldnt write to disk ad0' , and , couldnt make filesystems properly errors.

I don't see any BIOS settings related to disk geometry. It's an MSI K7N420 PRO system board.

(Help would be a good thing, I'm really interested in tinkering with FreeBSD).

I've already checked the CD file md5 checksum, and it checks ok. Could it possibly be that the checksum is corrupted during the burn process between the file version and the finish CD version?

It doesn't seem likely, but I do feel there is a problem with the image being corrupted.


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## crsd (Feb 24, 2009)

try switching to ttyv1 (Alt+F2) and check for ATA related errors there.


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## Lawless (Feb 25, 2009)

I managed to get past this point by rebooting.

Then at the bootup menu, selecting option (3), boot in safe mode.


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## BuSerD (Mar 4, 2009)

If you have resolved this issue please update the forum as to how. If not you may also want to try replacing the cable and/or using the second ide controller. Working in a data center from time to time has taught me to verify that the hardware is acting as it should.


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## Steve (Sep 9, 2010)

*just for info*

I think i may have found the problem with the filesystem cretion

If the user does not do as the messages tell them ..and tries to write out the mbr for the changes they have made, then this error occures.

If the user just uses the Q key to exit the config and proceed to the next stage etc then the drive slices and partitions will be created correctly.


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## SirDice (Sep 9, 2010)

Steve said:
			
		

> If the user does not do as the messages tell them


Ah.. Familiar problem. Users not reading messages or simply ignoring them.


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## jwelcher (Feb 10, 2011)

In case anyone comes across this thread in the future, I was seeing the same error message:


```
unable to find device node for /dev/adXs1b in /dev
the creation of filesystems will be aborted
```

This was on a system where it was working previously. Turns out the MBR was corrupted, and if I just zeroed out the MBR with dd along the lines of

`dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad0 bs=512 count=64`

and the install proceeded normally.


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