HP ML150 G2 with Adaptec AIC 7901x

[Kevin D. Casey]

I tried to install FreeBSD 6.0 on a new HP Proliant ML150 G2 but the installer times out while trying to detect the SCSI adapter. The installer returns a long message ending with the text "Dump Card State Ends" repeatedly in an endless loop. This unit comes with a 64-bit single channel HP-branded adapter that uses the Adaptec AIC7901x chip so it should be supported with the ahd driver. HP does not provide any updated BIOS firmware for the card however I did flash the mainboard BIOS just in case. When I run the installer in safe mode I don't get the error and fdisk seems to have no problem building the file system, but since it's in safe mode it can't access any external media so the installation fails. I would like to know if anyone has experience with this issue or can recommend a workaround. Thank you in advance.
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Kevin D. Casey
kevin at kdcasey.net