can't install 5.4, won't recognize SCSI CD Rom

Chuck Swiger cswiger at mac.com
Mon Oct 3 06:40:53 PDT 2005


jacobsanders at highstream.net wrote:
> I'm having a problem installing FreeBSD with a CD Rom disc.  I have a SCSI CD
> Rom player.  It's not possible to configure my system to search for the boot
> record from CD Rom.  Instead, I've been trying to start from the installation
> floppies, then have FreeBSD use the installation media on the CD Rom for the
> rest.  Unfortunately, FreeBSD can't see the installation media because it
> doesn't recognize my CD Rom player.

OK.

> From what I understand, most of the time, FreeBSD will use it's default drivers
> to recognize all hardware on a system.  In my case, the CD Rom isn't being
> recognized (although the SCSI hard drive is recognized).

Can you see the CD-ROM device from within the SCSI card's BIOS screen?

If not, you probably have a cabling or termination problem.  This is especially 
common if you have a mixture of 68-pin and 50-pin cables.  Try changing the 
SCSI ID of the CD-ROM drive.  Try disabling ultra/wide modes.  Double-check any 
CD-ROM related options in the SCSI BIOS.

If you have not already done so, you should try to reflash your BIOS on the MB 
and the SCSI card (and even for the CD-ROM drive if you can find an image for 
it) to the latest versions.

BTW, you haven't actually told us what the SCSI card or the CD-ROM devices 
actually are.  More details and precise settings would be useful, especially a 
dmesg (which could be put somewhere on the web and a link mailed, or as an 
attachment, but watch out for list MIME-type filtering by Mailman).

-- 
-Chuck


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