# FreeBSD 8.1 rc2 unable to make device node



## Icher (Jul 19, 2010)

Hi everybody,

I try to install FreeBSD 8.1 rc2 on my Server. But sysinstall alway told me: 

```
Unable to make device node for /dev/ad4s1a in /dev! The creation of filesystems will be aborted.
```

It is all the same for all 4 HDD in this system.
I used dd on all 4 drives to wipe the first 512KB of all HDD to make sure this isn' t a issue with the MBR, because in the past I had OpenSolaris installed at the system.

So I tried FreeBSD 7.3. The Installation worked fine. After booting into the system I do an upgrade to FreeBSD 8.1. The booting into the upgraded FreeBSD failed with 
	
	



```
Can't read device node
```

What else can I try here?


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## jb_fvwm2 (Jul 19, 2010)

kldload geom_mbr.ko, geom_label.ko, geom_bsd.ko *may* fix it.


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## Icher (Jul 19, 2010)

Ok, with kldload geom_mbr.ko, geom_label.ko, geom_bsd.ko I can install FreeBsd 8.1 rc2 without any errors. But when I try to boot into the system, of course after loading geom_mbr.ko, geom_label.ko, geom_bsd.ko from the loader prompt again, it told me:
	
	



```
WARNING: ad10s1 expected rawoffset 0, found 63
WARNING: ad10s1a expected rawoffset 0, found 63
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ad10s1a
Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/bash
```

So is this a problem with the HDD or the controller? When it is the controller I can try a different one, I have a Pci SATA controller here for testing.


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## SirDice (Jul 19, 2010)

Icher said:
			
		

> ]
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This can't be correct. There is NO /bin/bash.


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## Icher (Jul 19, 2010)

> Originally Posted by SirDice
> 
> ```
> This can't be correct. There is NO /bin/bash
> ```



Of course there is NO /bin/bash. This was typing error from me.Sorry.  It has to be:
	
	



```
Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh
```


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## Icher (Jul 19, 2010)

I solved the problem by using another controller.
The onboard Sil 3114 was working fine on FreeBsd 7.x, is it broken in FreeBsd 8.x or is it only my hardware?


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## fronclynne (Jul 20, 2010)

Does it work if you load siis.ko at the loader prompt?  (your device nodes may change names, so be aware of that)


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## Icher (Jul 20, 2010)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> Does it work if you load siis.ko at the loader prompt?



No, that don't help. 

But I figured out that the device nodes can be mounted manually from the recovery console.
I double checked the /etc/fstab but this is not the problem.

The other hdd witch I ran over another controller works fine.

Has anyone here a Sil 3114 working on FreeBsd 8.x?


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## naguz (May 3, 2011)

Did you ever find a solution for this? I'd like to upgrade from a zpool of three 1,5TB drives to four 3TB ones, and  I need a chep SATA card to hold the old disk pool while copying the files, and I also need to to keep the disk with the root filesystem after that. Seems like a cheap four port SATA card with FreeBSD support is hard to come by, so it'd be sad if the Sil3114 no longer works.


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## SirDice (May 4, 2011)

I recently bought a Promise TX4 SATA card. Cheap. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be recognized by ahci(4) but the card does work with the 'regular' ata(4) driver. Not sure about the NCQ features this way, but I did get 4 extra SATA ports.


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