# amd64 7.0 install problem (hang)



## puzon (Nov 21, 2008)

Hi everybody.
I have problem with Dell PE2900 (1xeon 1Gb ram, 2 disks with raid 1) and every version of Freebsd > 7.

when I boot install cd (normal instalation) it hangs on:
fdc0: <floppy drive controller> port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irg 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fdc0: does not respond
device_attach: fdc0 attach returned 6

when I boot without acpi it hangs on:
md0: Preloaded image </boot/mfsroot> 4194304 bytes at 0xffffffff80c4a260
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/md0

I try to disable fdc0 by hints:
set hint.fdc.0.disabled="1"

and nothing - still hangs on boot.

I have no problem with i386 version of Freebsd.

Lukas


----------



## richardpl (Nov 21, 2008)

Boot into verbose mode,
also try to boot into safe mode.


----------



## puzon (Nov 24, 2008)

when I boot with safe mode - server hangs on md0: Preloaded image .... 
the same like with no_acpi mode.
with verbose mode I cannot see any interest information. It stop on fdc0 problem.

Lukas


----------



## kamikaze (Nov 25, 2008)

As a workaround you could install i386 and build and install amd64 from the sources. You only have to make sure not to reboot between installkernel and installworld.


----------



## skylane (Nov 27, 2008)

*amd64 hangs*

I've had a number of problems with this, initially.  I don't know the Dell system, but I have an HP/Compaq V2000z notebook with an AMD64.  It boots and runs just fine on the i386 installation kit and has been running in that mode since FreeBSD5 using KDE 3.5.  No problems upgrading to 6-Release/i386 either.  It's been a fabulous machine.  I did have to use the NDIS driver for the wireless, but even that has worked everywhere in the world.

I recently decided to change to the amd64 mode on this machine.  Initial attempts to boot off cdr hung as well.  A bit of detective work revealed:

Hardware:  The notebook has no serial ports and no parallel port.  The system hung somewhere around the time that loader was probing the bus for hardware.  The only way out of this was to give the machine the single finger salute.

I restarted the system in interactive loader mode (option 6) and disabled all the hardware that didn't exist on the system that device.hints was looking for.

To do this, get an inventory of stuff that doesn't exist on your system that might have once been totally standard, like parallel ports, serial ports etc and set these to .disabled=1

Select option 6 on the boot loader and at the OK prompt you can type "show" and the system will list all the device hints.  On mine, it listed the following bad boys:

set hint.sio.0.disabled=1
set hint.sio.1.disabled=1
set hint.sio.2.disabled=1
set hint.sio.3.disabled=1
set hint.ppc.0.disabled=1

the boot.  Once you've identified the culprit you can move forward with your install.  After you have a bootable system installed, (with the bad device hint), you can modify the /boot/device.hints file to turn off the offending device probe.  

Those of you who are freebsd gurus can probably point to a better way of fixing this permanently than munging the device.hints file (or affirm that this is the best way to do it), but it worked for me.

Good luck.


----------



## puzon (Dec 1, 2008)

I found solution. In my PE2900 com port was off in bios. I found in other server, that after fdc0, installer check sio devices. When I turning on the com port, installer has run and everything works fine now.

So - everybody - check your coms in pe2900 with amd64 version of freebsd.

Best regards and thanks for your help!


----------



## tdi (Dec 4, 2008)

I tried to install FreeBSD AMD64 using cd, flash, floppy, all failed with various types of error messages.  My motherboard is Asus M3A78-EM.  Could anyone provide a more detailed work around? I have limited knowledge of FreeBSD, though I have never had any problems for the past 6 years.


----------



## tdi (Dec 5, 2008)

tdi said:
			
		

> I tried to install FreeBSD AMD64 using cd, flash, floppy, all failed with various types of error messages.  My motherboard is Asus M3A78-EM.  Could anyone provide a more detailed work around? I have limited knowledge of FreeBSD, though I have never had any problems for the past 6 years.



I found the problem(harddrive must be connected to first sata port) and was able to install 6.4 release.  But now the problem is that I can not shutdown or quit X.  If I do, the system hangs. Newsgroups seem to suggest upgrading to 7.1 beta.


----------

