MAJOR DISFUNCTION! Computer reboots instead of booting FreeBSD!

[Mike Brown]

> My computer (HP Compaq DC7100) refuses to boot to FreeBSD. It enters
> the MBR, I then select FreeBSD in the bootloader and the computer 
> reboots! What kind of behavior is this, and why won't it give FreeBSD a 
> chance?

I had the same symptom on different hardware. If I watched closely, I could 
see a kernel error message appear very briefly before the reboot. I tried 
various things and posted here about it, but could not get past it, and no one 
offered any help. Disabling ACPI made zero difference. I didn't understand why 
it would boot fine on the miniinst CD to do the install, but wouldn't boot 
from the HD (an ordinary ATA one, at that).

The problem went away when I gave up on FreeBSD 5.3 and installed FreeBSD 4.10 
instead.