# Unable to find device node for /dev/ad8s1b in /dev!



## BSDRich (Jul 7, 2009)

I've tried to install 7.2 and 8.0 and when I try to write the label by pressing "w" it pops up this message. What does it mean and what's going wrong?


----------



## SirDice (Jul 8, 2009)

Don't press W during the install. Just create the labels/partitions and press Q.


----------



## BSDRich (Jul 9, 2009)

I doesn't matter if I press w now or let the install write it later I still get the same error. That's why I tried writing it myself. That solved another problem I had when it was telling me filesystem full during install.


----------



## SirDice (Jul 10, 2009)

When that error occurs press ALT-F4, any additional info there?


----------



## clzupp (Oct 2, 2009)

BSDRich said:
			
		

> I've tried to install 7.2 and 8.0 and when I try to write the label by pressing "w" it pops up this message. What does it mean and what's going wrong?



Got the same problem here.  FreeBSD 6.4 was on ad0 and with 
8.0RC1-i386-disc1.iso the installer sees no slices/partitions.
Creating an new slice does not work, see error message in subject.

Any hints?  Btw, where is fdisk or/and disklable on the iso?

Cheers,
Uwe


----------



## crsd (Oct 2, 2009)

Is/was your disk GPT partitioned?


----------



## clzupp (Oct 3, 2009)

crsd said:
			
		

> Is/was your disk GPT partitioned?



No, not that i'm aware of.  6.0 was installed (sysintall) with
these partitions: /, swap, /var, /usr, /home and /data; all in
one slice (whole drive, nothing else on it).


----------



## crsd (Oct 3, 2009)

I had the same error as in subject when I tried to install 8-CURRENT snapshot as well as 8.0-RC1 to a disk which was GPT partitioned. sysinstall created slice and partitions, but once actual installation begun, boom, "Unable to find device node for /dev/ad10s1b in /dev". This could or not be related to the problem you are having, though. To be sure, check boot messages for something related to GPT.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Oct 3, 2009)

Same error installing a snapshot build iso (8 2009) of _8 
to a pci-card-sata external disk, even if "165" preformatted
in the windows shareware BootIt NG.


----------



## BSDRich (Oct 4, 2009)

"Is/was your disk GPT partitioned?"

Mine may have been. It was a long time ago so I can't remember. Why, can't FreeBSD recognize and deal with GPT?


----------



## hedwards (Oct 5, 2009)

BSDRich said:
			
		

> "Is/was your disk GPT partitioned?"
> 
> Mine may have been. It was a long time ago so I can't remember. Why, can't FreeBSD recognize and deal with GPT?


It can, the problem is that sysinstall can't. One can install FreeBSD to a GPT disk, but it takes extra effort and some manual steps.

What doesn't necessarily make much sens is why the GPT is so hard to blow away at times.


----------



## clzupp (Oct 6, 2009)

*[Solved]  Unable to find device node for /dev/ad0s1b in /dev*



			
				clzupp said:
			
		

> Creating an new slice does not work, see error message in subject.



8.0RC1 is now on my computer.  I first installed 7.2 RELEASE
with minimal distribution set and than deleted the disklabel
on /dev/ad0.  After that i could install 8.0RC1 without problems.

Some searching on the net and i found this message:
http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=774931+0+archive/2009/freebsd-current/20090118.freebsd-current

Bye,
Uwe


----------



## brucec@ (Sep 20, 2010)

> What doesn't necessarily make much sens is why the GPT is so hard to blow away at times.



The trick is to overwrite the very start and end of the partition, since GPT stores a backup table at the end too. That's why FreeBSD will still think the disk is partitioned using GPT if you just overwrite the first few sectors.


----------



## franklyn (Mar 8, 2012)

Hi, I know that the thread is old, but yesterday I had the same problem with FreeBSD 8.2:

```
Unable to find device node for /dev/ad4s1b in /dev!
```
I just want to help others with this problem...
And the only solution I found, was to use LiveCD(an old Ubuntu's in my case), there I opened a terminal and typed:

```
sudo fdisk -l
```
## to see harddisc and separated partitions on it. (e.g. sda sda1 sda2 sda3)
Then you need to wipe out the harddisc(sda) with

```
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512
```
----------
That's all, this will fix the installation problem.


----------

