zfs boot issue with and without AHCI

Mike Tancsa mike at sentex.net
Wed Jul 28 19:39:20 UTC 2010


I followed the very helpful docs at
<https://www.dan.me.uk/blog/2010/02/08/booting-from-zfs-raid056-in-freebsd-8-0-release/>https://www.dan.me.uk/blog/2010/02/08/booting-from-zfs-raid056-in-freebsd-8-0-release/ 


to get an 8.1R AMD64 install working booting purely off a zfs 
mirror!  However, one small issue I ran into is with AHCI enabled in the BIOS.

I did the install directly to disks ada0 and ada1 as I loaded AHCI 
from the boot DVD's loader prompt.  Everything booted up great.

<http://www.tancsa.com/zfs/ahci-boot.txt>http://www.tancsa.com/zfs/ahci-boot.txt 


Then, I took out the DVD ROM drive (CD1) that I installed from and 
went to reboot.  This time, the box would insta reboot just after the 
'BTX Loader' text would appear.  I then put back the DVD ROM and 
rebooted, still the same problem. Then, I went into the BIOS and 
forced the DVD to be the first boot device, just like it was at 
install time... Everything booted up fine once again.?!?!

Then, I pulled the DVD drive and  I rebooted the box and disabled 
AHCI in the BIOS and used just regular enhanced mode, and all booted 
up just fine.

<http://www.tancsa.com/zfs/ahci-boot.txt>http://www.tancsa.com/zfs/ata-boot.txt 


Is there something additionally that needs to be set for ahci to work 
in this manner ?

         ---Mike


--------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Tancsa,                                      tel +1 519 651 3400
Sentex Communications,                            mike at sentex.net
Providing Internet since 1994                    www.sentex.net
Cambridge, Ontario Canada                         www.sentex.net/mike



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