Loader can't read USB drive @ boot

[Fred Davidson]

--- Jerry McAllister <jerrymc at msu.edu> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 09:16:35AM -0700, Fred
> Davidson wrote:
> 
> > Well I was having this problem with GRUB which
> someone
> > helped me with.  Now Grub will boot my USB key and
> > load loader.  The problem?  loader hangs, and
> > eventually says it can't find the kernel.  when I
> > lsdev it always gives the right description of my
> hard
> > disk partitions on the hard drive, but prints
> nothing
> > for the USB disk. So...
> 
> When the FreeBSD loader can't find the kernel, it
> often means
> that it is looking in the wrong place.  Is your Grub
> MBR pointing
> it to the right place?   What is actually on that
> stick?
> Is there a    DDsNa partition for it to boot from? 
> DD being device
> and N being a slice number, 1..4.
> 
> ////jerry


Thanks for the reply Jerry, sorry my last post wasn't
very descriptive, but my prior post was overly
descriptive and didn't get much of a response, however
it did describe the issue well:

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=2379736+2387238+/usr/local/www/db/text/2007/freebsd-questions/20070603.freebsd-questions

Andrey pointed out in a later post that I was making
the mistake of creating UFS2 filesystems in slices and
not partitions (e.g. s1 vs. s1a).  Once I corrected
that I had no problem using grub 0.97 to boot into my
ufs2 partitions.  So I reboot...

Grub boots right into the partition on the USB stick
(say da0s1a).  After choosing the menu selection the
system appears to load loader, and then hangs.  I
posted a very detailed description of this, but got
your response before the posting occurred.  I still
can't find the posting online, but it's message 22 in:

freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 181, Issue 6

Basically loader seems to begin, and ends right before
the line that reads:

loading /boot/defaults/loader

Then it hangs, and if I wait a while I'll get can't
load kernel.  if I lsdev I won't get any indication
that there is a filesystem present where the USB
device is.  This is true whether I boot from the USB
device or the hard disk.  Basically I'm just trying to
get GELI to work from some kind of removable medium.  

Right now I'm kind of blaming this on a cheap (but
new) laptop with a BIOS that doesn't let me choose CHS
or LBA, or make any such selections.  I thought I
would try and see if changing what the BIOS thinks in
fdisk would do anything, but I have no idea how to
find the chs info for my USB stick (no included with
stick, and manufacturer gives no info).  Does anyone
have an inkling what's going on here?

Also I just wanted to mention that when booting the
freebsd cd if I escape to the loader prompt and lsdev
I get 

cd0: Device 0x1

I would guess this would mean that freebsd would be
able to load the kernel off of the cd device?  If
anyone believes this could be viable I'll happily
start another thread to try this, thankyou.

-Fred





       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. 
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/