FreeBSD 9.0-BETA2 memstick USB image hangs my BIOS

[Matt Thyer]

On Sep 28, 2011 7:15 AM, "Matt Thyer" <matt.thyer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 28, 2011 4:11 AM, "Nathan Whitehorn" <nwhitehorn at freebsd.org>
wrote:
> >
> > On 09/27/11 08:24, Matt Thyer wrote:
> >>
> >> On Sep 26, 2011 2:33 PM, "Adrian Chadd"<adrian at freebsd.org>  wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 26 September 2011 12:56, Kevin Oberman<kob6558 at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I suspect that the thumb  drive is the issue, not FreeBSD.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I've booted the drive successfully on an older Via C3 board.
> >>>
> >>> I'm now watching it boot successfully on a Gigabyte GA-8I915PC Duo
board.
> >>>
> >>> I'm going to try dumping a Linux distro on this USB disk after I get
> >>> PCBSD 9.0-BETA2 installed. That way I can try to eliminate the USB
> >>> disk as being "funny".
> >>> (Although it's quite possible the USB disk is doing other funny
things.)
> >>>
> >>> I really do think that this BIOS of mine dislikes a GPT partition
> >>> inside an MBR/DOS setup. If this is the case, I wonder how many other
> >>> motherboard/BIOSes have this problem.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Adrian
> >>
> >>
> >> I believe this would be due to the improper GPT partition table on the
> >> FreeBSD memstick (as there is no backup partition table at the end of
the
> >> volume).
> >>
> >> This was discussed earlier and now that makefs has patches for UFS
label
> >> support there should be no need to continue to use GPT partitioning for
the
> >> memstick image.
> >>
> >> The background is that bsdinstall relys on labels (a good thing) and
GPT
> >> partition labels were being used but as there's no way to predict the
size
> >> of your memstick, the resulting GPT partition table was not valid (for
> >> strict UEFI systems).
> >>
> >> The fix was to go back to traditional MS-DOS partitioning (MBR) but
this
> >> couldn't be done until makefs supported UFS labels. Someone came up
with
> >> patches so 9.0 should be able to have an MBR memstick and bsdinstall.
> >>
> >> I'm not sure how far this has progressed.
> >
> >
> > I don't believe these patches were ever committed. Could you provide a
pointer to them?
> > -Nathan
>
> Yes, it was Andriy Gapon in this message:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?db=irt&id=4E60F480.6040706@FreeBSD.org

That message id link doesn't seem to work.

To find the message I searched for "makefs" on the FreeBSD mailing list
archive search facility with only "Current" selected.

The message was dated Fri, 2nd September 2011, 18:21:36 +0300 and the link
to the patch was: http://people.freebsd.org/~avg/makefs.ffs-label.diff
On Sep 28, 2011 7:15 AM, "Matt Thyer" <matt.thyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 28, 2011 4:11 AM, "Nathan Whitehorn" <nwhitehorn at freebsd.org>
wrote:
>>
>> On 09/27/11 08:24, Matt Thyer wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sep 26, 2011 2:33 PM, "Adrian Chadd"<adrian at freebsd.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 26 September 2011 12:56, Kevin Oberman<kob6558 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I suspect that the thumb drive is the issue, not FreeBSD.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I've booted the drive successfully on an older Via C3 board.
>>>>
>>>> I'm now watching it boot successfully on a Gigabyte GA-8I915PC Duo
> board.
>>>>
>>>> I'm going to try dumping a Linux distro on this USB disk after I get
>>>> PCBSD 9.0-BETA2 installed. That way I can try to eliminate the USB
>>>> disk as being "funny".
>>>> (Although it's quite possible the USB disk is doing other funny
things.)
>>>>
>>>> I really do think that this BIOS of mine dislikes a GPT partition
>>>> inside an MBR/DOS setup. If this is the case, I wonder how many other
>>>> motherboard/BIOSes have this problem.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Adrian
>>>
>>>
>>> I believe this would be due to the improper GPT partition table on the
>>> FreeBSD memstick (as there is no backup partition table at the end of
the
>>> volume).
>>>
>>> This was discussed earlier and now that makefs has patches for UFS label
>>> support there should be no need to continue to use GPT partitioning for
> the
>>> memstick image.
>>>
>>> The background is that bsdinstall relys on labels (a good thing) and GPT
>>> partition labels were being used but as there's no way to predict the
> size
>>> of your memstick, the resulting GPT partition table was not valid (for
>>> strict UEFI systems).
>>>
>>> The fix was to go back to traditional MS-DOS partitioning (MBR) but this
>>> couldn't be done until makefs supported UFS labels. Someone came up with
>>> patches so 9.0 should be able to have an MBR memstick and bsdinstall.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure how far this has progressed.
>>
>>
>> I don't believe these patches were ever committed. Could you provide a
> pointer to them?
>> -Nathan
>
> Yes, it was Andriy Gapon in this message:
> http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?db=irt&id=4E60F480.6040706@FreeBSD.org