FreeBSD 6.1 hangs at mountroot> during bootup

[admin at hdk5.com]

Mike Peirson wrote:

> Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>
>> On Thursday, 21 September 2006 at  7:43:44 +0300, Odhiambo Washington 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> * On 20/09/06 16:47 -0700, Mike Peirson wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> First off, I'm new to FreeBSD and this mailinglist so I hope I am 
>>>> in the
>>>> right place. Anyways, right now I am having some problems with FreeBSD
>>>> booting up. I have tried to install 3 times now and keep getting the
>>>> same error. When I try to boot into FreeBSD, this eventually comes up:
>>>>
>>>>         Manual root filesystem specification:
>>>>                   <fstype>:<device> Mount <device> using filesystem
>>>> <fstype>
>>>>                                        eg. ufs:da0s1a
>>>>                   ?                 List valid disk boot devices
>>>>                   <empty line>      abort manual input
>>>>                 Mountroot>
>>>>
>>>> This seems to be a prompt where I need to specify the location of the
>>>> root partition, but the problem here is that it hangs or freezes and I
>>>> cannot input any text.
>>>
>>> Any further details about your hardware specs in general?
>>
>>
>> This is a keyboard problem.  The background is that the boot process
>> uses a different keyboard driver from the final kernel, and that it's
>> much more finicky than the kernel version.  It seems to have got worse
>> in the last few years.  I've found that a USB keyboard will do better,
>> but YMMV.
>>
>>>> At first I thought it may be a result of FreeBSD not properly
>>>> recognizing my HDD's geometry but I manually fixed that and it
>>>> still is giving me this same issue. If anyone has had a similar
>>>> problem or knows how to fix this I would greatly appreciate any
>>>> help. I looked through the Handbook and googled this but I haven't
>>>> found a solution yet.
>>>
>>
>> The background for the *message* (not the apparent freeze) is that
>> your root file system can't be found.  This happens typically when you
>> change the device name.  For example, my situation is that I'm doing
>> development with a SATA disk drive and moving it from system to
>> system.  On my machine the root file system shows up as /dev/ad4s1a;
>> on the other machine it's /dev/ad0s1a.
>>
>> It's probably worth putting in a PR about this problem.
>>
>> Greg
>> -- 
>> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
>
>
> About the keyboard.. I have it running through a KVM switch, would 
> this also cause any problems? I booted into safemode and noticed that 
> the problem with inputting text was nonexistant. I am not sure why it  
> can't find my root filesystem. I haven't changed the device name or 
> moved anything around at all. BTW, is there any way I can get into 
> FreeBSD (maybe via the install disc?) to get a detailed printout of my 
> FreeBSD slice? Posting that on here may be of some use.

You get errors with KVM switches, yes. In my case one box that gives an 
error still works fine after the bios or whatever it is that complains 
has its say. Then continues the boot and doesnt complain again. Its an 
old HP Vector.

Al Plant - Honolulu, Hawaii

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