# Error installing fbsd 8 on virtual box



## Ayman (Jun 15, 2010)

Hi...
when i try to install FreeBSD 8 on virtual box i get the error "cannot dump. device not defined or unavailable" and it comes at different phases of install. process.
please help!


----------



## wblock@ (Jun 15, 2010)

That's FreeBSD crashing and trying to save a crashdump.  It shouldn't do that, or rather, normally wouldn't.

Beyond that, details like what version of VirtualBox on what kind of host OS with how much RAM and so on might matter.


----------



## Ayman (Jun 16, 2010)

sorry i had to list details before that.
virtual box version:3.1.4 r57640
host os: windows xp sp3
cpuentium 4 3.20ghz hyper threading
ram: ddr2 2GB one module pc2-6400
MB: intel d945gccr


----------



## wblock@ (Jun 16, 2010)

Ayman said:
			
		

> sorry i had to list details before that.
> virtual box version:3.1.4 r57640



That's relatively ancient, please upgrade to the latest, currently 3.2.4.


----------



## eyebone (Jun 17, 2010)

yes its an older version and you definitly want to upgrade, even for me it was working. 
major problem i have with freebsd host and a freebsd guest onto it is some malfunction with the g_vfs which lets the hdd disapear and u have datalost.

i have solved this issue (mostly) by assigning a scsis (buslogic/lsilogic) and removed the IDE. i would be interested if u ran in same problems, if so try scsi.

good luck.


----------



## philipk88 (Jul 25, 2010)

Hi, I have the same problem. My host os is Ubuntu 10.04, I've got a quad-core 
AMD64 processor, Virtualbox 3.1.6 and 2GB of ram, 512MB of ram and 16GB of dynamically expanding hard drive space is allocated to FreeBSD. I've tried two different installation
cds and installing from an ftp server. For the cds it says "cannot dump device not defined
or unavailable" and rebooted. then it couldn't find a kernel. when I try the ftp method it 
keeps asking me for another server without showing any errors. I know I'm using the disk1 
iso and not the boot only. What am I doing wrong?


----------



## adamk (Jul 25, 2010)

Well did you try updating to the latest VirtualBox, as suggested to the original poster?

Adam


----------



## philipk88 (Jul 25, 2010)

This is the only version in my synaptic package manager. There are some 
add-on packages for it in there, guest additions and so forth.


----------



## adamk (Jul 25, 2010)

OK...   But you can still try a newer version of VirtualBox.   Older versions, unfortunately, had issues with FreeBSD.

Adam


----------



## philipk88 (Jul 26, 2010)

I installed the version 3.2.6, it was much easier than I expected, usually I have to type a bunch of commands to install anything using the browser. However, I still got the same error while it was extracting generic.


----------



## rden (Jul 27, 2010)

In the virtualbox are you using is the hard disk (vdi) attached to the SATA or IDE controller?

Use SATA (add the SATA controller if neccesary) for hard disks, IDE has been reported by some people to cause problems.  (You will still need the IDE for the CD device.)


----------



## philipk88 (Jul 28, 2010)

it worked! thank you all very much!


----------



## NMM777 (Jul 28, 2010)

which answer is work? I had saw this problem before.


----------



## philipk88 (Jul 28, 2010)

the sata suggestion worked, and upgrading was probably necessary also.


----------

