CDROM Boot Hangs But Only Under 6.x

[Tim Daneliuk]

David M. Patronis wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>> illoai at gmail.com wrote:
>>> On 25/12/2007, Tim Daneliuk <tundra at tundraware.com> wrote:
>>>> I am building a new server out of both older and brand new
>>>> components.  It is based on a Pentium D 925 and ABIT LG-95Z
>>>> mobo.  The DVD-RW is a Lite-On about a year old with very
>>>> low hours on it.
>>>>
>>>> So ... here's a fun one:  I can boot and install FreeBSD 4.x (CD)
>>>> or Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux Desktop 10 SP1 (DVD) via the
>>>> DVD.  But attempting to do this with 6.x (I have tried 6.2R and
>>>> 6.3-PRE disk #1) causes a hang during boot.  The loader gets
>>>> as far as showing the vertical bar that ordinarily "spins"
>>>> to show intitial kernel loading progress and the the machine
>>>> just sits there.  There is some further activity on the optical
>>>> drive at this point and then the cursor sort of jumps around a bit.
>>>>
>>>> I've not yet tried swapping the optical drive out - though I doubt
>>>> this is the problem since I can load the other OSs.  I've tried
>>>> removing and moving memory sticks in case this is a flakey
>>>> memory problem - no change.  I've tried removing the only
>>>> two cards in the machine: 3COM 905C-TX and an Adaptec 2940UW -
>>>> no change.
>>>>
>>>> I have one last ditch thing I will try later tonight which is
>>>> to force the DVD IDE port into PIO mode and out of DMA mode.
>>>> But that's it.  I am stumped.  Ideas anyone?
>>>>
>>>
>>> If it is not hardware, check your bios settings (and mayhap
>>> set back to default or very conservative) (of which the PIO
>>> trick may work).
>>
>>
>>
>> I just swapped out the optical drive with a CD-RW - exact same
>> symptoms.  Fiddling w/BIOS, seems to make no difference, though
>> I am still poking at it.  I am utterly lost - never seen
>> very standard hardware like this that FreeBSD could/would not
>> boot and run on ...
> Response:
> 
> Its probably an issue with the 6X series. I have experienced something 
> similar and just spoke to someone via this list with a similar problem. 
> In all cases thus far we were able to install using the 7X series.
> 
> David

Not in this case.  As I mentioned in a prior post, I tried booting
with the 7.0-BETA4 ISO and got the exact same results.


-- 
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Tim Daneliuk     tundra at tundraware.com
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