Acer Travelmate 8371 bricked by installing FreeBSD?

[Markus Hoenicka]

Uffe Jakobsen <uffe at uffe.org> was heard to say:

>
> likewise here - the system appeared to hang in the bios...
>

Ok, so installing another OS is apparently not entirely unrelated to  
the problem. My shrink will be relieved :-)

> My guess is that if you remove/unplug your HDD - it will not hang anymore...
>
> The workaround for me was to remove the disk - go into the bios -  
> and configure the sata emulation from ahci mode to ide  
> "legacy/compatible" mode - or whatever they called it in the bios  
> (I've no access to the notebook right now)
>
> After that you can put back the HDD and boot again - and it should work.
>

I wonder if that would work if I changed the BIOS accordingly *before*  
installing the OS. I loathe removing the HDD as I'm not exactly sure  
how to get it out without damaging the case - removing the two obvious  
screws was not enough to remove the HDD lid. Damaging the case will  
make it hard to return the laptop (I can return it within 14 days of  
purchase).

Also, did you notice any performance problems after changing this setting?

> Question: did you install the FBSD BootManager or just a std MBR ?
>

I did, because I use it also on multi-boot boxes. Come to think of it,  
it doesn't really make sense on this laptop though. Does your question  
imply that the FreeBSD boot manager may screw up things sufficiently  
to make booting impossible?

regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Hoenicka
http://www.mhoenicka.de
AQ score 38