Re: FreeBSD boot from root pool larger than 1Tb/cannot read MOS/all block copies unavailable

From: Zaphod Beeblebrox <zbeeble_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2022 19:14:20 UTC
I have had this happen too... in my case an TR4 motherboard booting from 2x
4T (WD red) and an NMVE cache/log.  What I've found is that the BIOS is
faulty for some reason on reboot --- and that a complete poweroff (where
the board power -- and the LEDs go out) is required ... and then everything
boots just fine.

... but the not being able to find all block copies is the error that the
bootblock loader emits while trying to suck in loader.

... and in my case, the only drives BIOS can see are the 2x 4T and the
NVMe.  The system also has a SAS card in it, but this card is configured to
not talk to BIOS and presents no disks.  This card has also been changed
out with other hardware several times whlie the system has shown this "not
all block copies" error since switching to this motherboard.

On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 10:12 AM Eugene M. Zheganin <eugene@zhegan.in>
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> recently I found another server that was running 12.x and became
> unbootable because of the famous "cannot read MOS/all block copies
> unavailable/etc" gptzfsboot message which can be randomly displayed when
> boot blocks migrate beyond 1st Tb on a large root pool. I managed to
> boot the server from CD (pointing out the root pool with
> vfs.root.mountfrom) and then upgraded it to the recent 13.0, where is
> showed no signs of being able to boot from disks again (so I'm treating
> this as still not fixed, and probably as won't be fixed issue).
>
> Since this issue is like 10 years old and I see no light at the end of
> the tunnel, could the bsdinstall at least be made aware about this so it
> won't permit the large root pool creation by default ? Because as far as
> I remember there's still no option in it to create a pool smaller than
> the disk, and I have to use the custom installation script in order to
> do this.
>
> I'm asking because unfortunately recently I've found two more of these
> time bombs among my servers.
>
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Eugene.
>
>
> P.S. There have been speculations that switching to the UEFI loader may
> help, because it's more functional and probably can see the migrated
> over 1Tb boot blocks, can anyone confirm this ?
>
>
>