Freeze after "Booting [kernel]"

[Markus Oestreicher]

Dear Doug,

> > I installed a new FreeBSD 4.9 machine from CD. The installation
> > runs fine but on the first reboot the machine hangs after the
> > "Booting [kernel]..." prompt. I see the first "/" and then the
> > boot process stops. "boot -v" doesn't give more output.
> 
> Try rigging a serial console and see if things are actually 
> progressing.
> Very early on the video card gets some initialization and it might be
> freaking out, causing your screen to turn off.  If the system 
> is crashing,
> you'll see the messages.

The serial console shows the same output:

--- BootMgr:

F1   FreeBSD

Default: F1

--- FreeBSD loader:

BTX loader 1.00  BTX version is 1.01
Console: internal video/keyboard
BIOS drive A: is disk0
BIOS drive C: is disk1
BIOS 637kB/522240kB available memory

FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 0.8
(root at freebsd-stable.sentex.ca, Fri Oct 17 20:16:05 GMT 2003)
Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf
/kernel text=0x327335 data=0x4dab0+0x349c4
syms=[0x4+0x45350+0x4+0x4d77b]
\
Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt.

--- Boot prompt:

Type '?' for a list of commands, 'help' for more detailed help.
ok
ok ls /

/
 d  dev
 d  usr
 d  var
 d  stand
 d  etc
 d  cdrom
 d  proc
 d  dist
 d  bin
 d  boot
 d  mnt
 d  modules
 d  root
 d  sbin
 d  tmp
 l  sys
    .cshrc
    .profile
    COPYRIGHT
    kernel.GENERIC
    kernel
 l  compat

ok  boot -v

... and then the boot process stops. 

Do you think it is a problem with the drive's geometry?

bye
Markus