# crashing after reboot



## sixcorners (Jun 2, 2009)

Currently when I attempt to boot the system it freezes after displaying the OEM logo. If I turn on the POST messages it freezes after it tests the memory and says that there is a legacy keyboard connected. While the hard drive is attached I am unable to do anything with the system including access the BIOS. When I removed the hard drive I was able to get into the BIOS settings and everything worked.
The strange thing is that when I plug the hard drive into the same type of computer but with an older BIOS (it also had a different video card), it seems to work.
I have not started FreeBSD yet on the other computer. I think I am just going to reinstall everything to see if it fixes it. I think the only weird thing about the last installation was that it reported some weird hard drive geometry, but I don't know anything about that and just had it leave it the way it was...
Has anyone else experienced anything like this?


----------



## ericbsd (Jun 2, 2009)

yes but not freeze. just an error I can fix that easy but total freezing never appendto me.


----------



## SirDice (Jun 2, 2009)

sixcorners said:
			
		

> Currently when I attempt to boot the system it freezes after displaying the OEM logo. If I turn on the POST messages it freezes after it tests the memory and says that there is a legacy keyboard connected. While the hard drive is attached I am unable to do anything with the system including access the BIOS. When I removed the hard drive I was able to get into the BIOS settings and everything worked.
> The strange thing is that when I plug the hard drive into the same type of computer but with an older BIOS (it also had a different video card), it seems to work.


I have a similar issue with one of my computers. If my 1TB external usb harddrive is connected, the computer will freeze. Haven't had any issues with my other computers.




> I have not started FreeBSD yet on the other computer. I think I am just going to reinstall everything to see if it fixes it.


Not very likely as the "freeze" occurs before the OS is loaded. It's most likely a BIOS issue.


----------



## sixcorners (Jun 2, 2009)

*Hmm..*

I tried to un-update the BIOS but I guess a company bought some part of gateway and then went out of business.. Anyway, both times I installed FreeBSD I used the standard loader. Maybe if I installed the other FreeBSD loader or maybe even windows into a small partition, it would work. Gonna try that soon.


----------



## sixcorners (Jun 2, 2009)

SirDice said:
			
		

> I have a similar issue with one of my computers. If my 1TB external usb harddrive is connected, the computer will freeze. Haven't had any issues with my other computers.
> 
> 
> 
> Not very likely as the "freeze" occurs before the OS is loaded. It's most likely a BIOS issue.



I also believe it is a BIOS issue because the hard drive still works on the other computer and the system boots up if the primary IDE setting in the BIOS is disabled or the IDE cord is disconnected from the hard drive.. so I don't think it could be a power issue.
It's a PATA hard drive btw.


----------



## sixcorners (Jun 2, 2009)

I installed that other boot thing and the symptoms still persist. Think I should install windows into a partition? I had considered installing it earlier just so I could still run some windows applications.
What about using something like OpenBIOS, coreboot, or something?


----------



## iic2 (Jun 3, 2009)

[font="Arial Narrow"]





> While the hard drive is attached I am unable to do anything with the system including access the BIOS



The BIOS ... It seems like you have been trying to install windows from the beginning or in the past and windows has tricks of it own that you may never debug before paying out the bucks to see half of it.  Great to know it may be possible but as many do know windows can be full of tricks.  I bet it was any version of windows or service pack containing with DEP.  Just a thought; reset your BIOS to original, worry about your custom setting latter but do sanitize your HDD anyway, and try again as you watch more carefully.  Write down all errors[/font]


----------



## sixcorners (Jul 29, 2009)

It works! Here is my story: 
Short version, it was a BIOS problem, had to revert it.

Ok.. After I had installed FreeBSD onto an IDE hard drive the BIOS would freeze after POST. I knew that it was just that version of the BIOS with the problem because I had another computer that was built to the same specs that ran FreeBSD just fine off that same hard drive. It wouldn't let me into the BIOS settings or anything while the hard drive was attached.

So I began to look for ways to go to a previous version of the BIOS. Gateway made some deal with MPC corp so that I had to go through them for customer service. MPC corp is bankrupt.. The Gateway support site became non-functional for people with serial numbers of computers that were included in this deal. Turns out the support site was mirrored to assets.gateway.com and that was still functional. On my computer's support page there was only the most recent version of my computer's BIOS listed. Looking at one of the links to the download(ftp://esupport:vImvF88@ftp.gateway.com/pub/hardware_support/bios/pentium/rg84510a/9524633.txt), I was able to access the password protected FTP server and download an older version of the BIOS. (This is after I had considered using the BIOS that Intel supplies if you purchased the board separately. Intel doesn't want you to do that.)

Now all I had to do was make a bootable floppy which was difficult because that computer is the only computer I own that has a floppy drive and my father threw out the other computer that would work with FreeBSD. I booted from a Ubuntu Live CD without the hard drive attached and copied the files needed to the floppy disk. The system didn't want to boot from the floppy. I burned a MS-DOS boot disk (http://www.bootdisks.us/ms-dos/5/ms-dos-bootable-cd-images.html) from here. I was able to boot that disk and access the floppy from the prompt. After running iflash.exe (or autoexec.bat) I was able to finally able to flash the BIOS back to an older version.

What a hassle! : \

@iic2
Windows was installed before I installed Linux, which was installed right before I tried to install FreeBSD. Each install was a full install. Would that have been enough to sanitize the HD?


----------

