Unable to boot FreeBSD 8.0-p3

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Fri, Jul 02, 2010 at 12:14:28AM +0800, GNUbie wrote:
> Hello Jeremy,
> 
> On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 12:06 AM, Jeremy Chadwick
> <freebsd at jdc.parodius.com> wrote:
> >
> > Kernel crash dumps are not enabled by default.  You need to define the
> > following in /etc/rc.conf before that will happen:
> >
> > dumpdev="auto"
> 
> Ok. So, the line "Cannot dump. Device not defined or unavailable." is
> already going to be an output of the kernel crash. Meaning, during
> bootup, somehow the kernel crash and since crash dumps was not
> defined, that is why I was getting that message I just mentioned.
>

> Moving forward, what are your recommendations in order for me to be
> able to boot from my system?

1) Your screen shot doesn't indicate the root filesystem is being
mounted, which more or less inhibits your ability to get a crash dump.
I don't think it's worth putting forth effort to try and get one.

Interesting though *is* the fact that the kernel crashes at the point
where the root fileystem normally gets mounted.  Example system:

SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
Root mount waiting for: usbus7 usbus3
Root mount waiting for: usbus7 usbus3
uhub3: 6 ports with 6 removable, self powered
uhub7: 6 ports with 6 removable, self powered
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ada0s1a

I'm wondering if the "Swap zone entries" message is giving us some hints
as to where the problem lies (filesystem corruption?  Not sure!).

2) I'm not entirely sure your system has bad RAM.  It's possible, but
honestly it wouldn't be my first guess.  Bad hardware is always a
possibility though, so it's worth considering.

3) Have you tried downloading a 8.1-RC1 LiveFS CD and seeing if it
boots, works, etc?  You might be able to start to recovery your system
from there.

For those who haven't looked at the screen shot, the kernel outputs
the following immediately before/during the crash (i386 system):

uhub4: <Intel EHCI root HUB, class 9/0, rev 2.00/1.00, addr 1> on usbus4
SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #3 Launched!
SMP: AP CPU #2 Launched!
Swap zone entries reduced from 121574 to 4742.

Fatal double fault:
eip = 0xc0ace110
esp = 0xffe8b000
ebp = 0xffe8b840
cpuid = 3; apic id = 03
panic: double fault
cpuid = 3
Uptime: 2s
Cannot dump, blah blah, automatic reboot in 15 seconds...

Not sure about EBP (the screen shot is washed out and I haven't tried
using Photoshop to clean it up).

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |