# No /boot/loader



## balanga (Mar 23, 2017)

I ran `bsdinstall` after booting up using `mfsbsd` over PXE and installed
onto a new 20GB partition created by shrinking an existing NTFS partition.

On rebooting I was greeted with

```
No /boot/loader

FreeBSD/x86 boot
Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/kernel/kernel
boot:
No /boot/kernel/kernel
```

Attaching the disk to another system using a USB caddy `gpart show` shows this


```
63  117210177  da0  MBR  (56G)
         63   76250177    1  ntfs  (36G)
   76250240   40959999    2  freebsd  [active]  (20G)
  117210239          1       - free -  (512B)

=>       0  40959999  da0s2  BSD  (20G)
         0  39845888      1  freebsd-ufs  (19G)
  39845888   1114110      2  freebsd-swap  (544M)
  40959998         1         - free -  (512B)
```

Mounting the FreeBSD partition using `mount /dev/da0s2 /mnt/ufs` and getting a file/directory listing I see:

```
total 20
drwxr-xr-x  5 root  wheel     512 Mar 23 12:44 .
drwxr-xr-x  7 root  wheel     512 Mar 23 13:23 ..
drwxrwxr-x  2 root  operator  512 Mar 23 12:44 .snap
drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel     512 Mar 23 12:44 dev
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel     512 Mar 23 12:44 usr

./.snap:
total 8
drwxrwxr-x  2 root  operator  512 Mar 23 12:44 .
drwxr-xr-x  5 root  wheel     512 Mar 23 12:44 ..

./dev:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel  512 Mar 23 12:44 .
drwxr-xr-x  5 root  wheel  512 Mar 23 12:44 ..

./usr:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel  512 Mar 23 12:44 .
drwxr-xr-x  5 root  wheel  512 Mar 23 12:44 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel  512 Mar 23 12:44 freebsd-dist

./usr/freebsd-dist:
total 128328
drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel       512 Mar 23 12:44 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel       512 Mar 23 12:44 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  96364744 Mar 23 12:44 base.txz
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  34940332 Mar 23 12:44 kernel.txz
```

Clearly, the installation process has simply downloaded a couple of pkgs, but not extracted or installed them. It has, however, altered the MBR.

Is there any way I can do a network boot and carry on the installation process now that those two pkgs have been retrieved? For some reason `bsdinstall` was unable to carry on after getting these two pkgs.


----------



## usdmatt (Mar 23, 2017)

If you have the disk mounted you could just try the following:


```
# tar -C /mnt/ufs -xvJpf base.txz
# tar -C /mnt/ufs -xvJpf kernel.txz
```

That's pretty much all the installer does, other than letting you set a few config settings.
You'll probably want to create /etc/fstab although the root filesystem should mount without it.


----------



## balanga (Mar 24, 2017)

Many thanks for that, I wouldn't have managed to figure that out myself...

I do have the system running now, but on previous occasions when installing FreeBSD alongside Windows, FreeBSD would install it's own Boot Manager allowing me to select Windows. In this case, `bsdinstall` did not complete successfully, so it did not install Boot Manager. How would I go about installing it manually?


----------



## balanga (Mar 25, 2017)

usdmatt said:


> If you have the disk mounted you could just try the following:
> 
> 
> ```
> ...




Just a thought... if I obtained these two files for any other versions (as well as x32 or x64), could I simply install those versions with those two commands?


----------

