Disk setup X5000

Hello,

I have worked for the last few months on this issue without any real 
solution. I think I may have eliminated some things, but that is it. At 
first I thought maybe it was that the bootloader could see the 
partition, but the kernel could not see it, but after much testing I 
don't think that is the case. Then I thought because we have switched to 
mbr, that maybe I needed to setup the drives on an i386 system. I don't 
really own much in the way of i386, but I was able to use the school's 
laptop to setup a drive, but even the bootloader could not load the 
kernel from that partition. It really looks like adding bootargs: 
vfs.root.moutnfrom=ufs:/dev/ada0s2a to uboot does nothing, but doesn't 
hurt anything either. I think the problem is still with the disk setup. 
What it really looks like is that it finds the disk, but then later on 
it tries to remount it and then things go wrong. Before the kernel would 
look at: the ada disk first, but now it looks at mmcsd0: 4GB first. I 
guess that I thought a disklabel would fix this.

I have looked at many howto's on using gpart to setup disks. Nothing has 
helped me.

1. What should be in fstab?
2. Is there a gpart howto somewhere that explains what needs to be done 
to partition the drives on an X5000?
3. Should the disklabel be added with newfs and is there anything else 
that I need to know?
4. Does the slice of the root partition need to be marked active?
5. Should I be creating a UFS1 or UFS2 partition?
6. Should -T option be set with newfs?
7. Could there be something missing in the kernel?

I really need to verify at this point that my setup is correct. I guess 
it could be something set in uboot, but I don't see how. If I can't 
figure this out, then maybe someone on this list could help me. I would 
be willing to pay $100 an hour, or what you make at your day job per 
hour, or what ever seems reasonable to you to get this issue resolved. I 
think this could be done remotely by ssh into another computer and then 
using the serial console, or I can send you a disk, or maybe I could buy 
time on a working FreeBSD X5000, or I am sure there are other options. I 
just don't want it to be 2025 and I am still stuck on this issue.

Kind Regards,
Al