Installation problem

[Mark Terribile]

James <jamespi at blueyonder.co.uk> writes:

> I'm currently trying to install version 5.0-CURRENT,
> my problem is that when I boot off of the CDROM, it
> starts loading fine, probes the hardware, then
> it comes up with the message:
> 
> 	ata0: resetting devices
> 
> at which point it hangs. I have disabled the loading
> of ACPI drivers ... but this alas has not helped.
> 
> My hardware is ... Seagate Barracuda HDD
> 	and Acer CDRW drive.

Oooh!  This sounds like the problem that others here
just helped me with!  I had to disable DMA on my ATA
drive.  For me it's an archive store, so I'm not hurt
by it; you may be.

To do this, you have to talk to the boot loader.  I
don't recall how the CD-ROM is set up, but if you
get a countdown prompt reading something like
``Booting in 9 seconds.  Press <Return> to boot
immediately''
you can hit the space bar (anything but return) to
talk to the boot loader.  At that point, you issue
the command

        set hw.ata.ata_dma=0

and then

         boot

to continue the bootstrap.

After the install, you may have to do this again;
once FreeBSD is up for real, edit the assignment
(without the `set ') into /boot/loader.conf .

If you run this way, you will see interrupt activity
soaking up the CPU during disk transfers; my preferred
monitor is

       systat 1 -vmstat

                  .

                                   Mark Terribile

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