Freeze on bootstrap loader (CD) using ATA/133 Promise FastTrak TX2000

[Mathieu Chappuis]

Hello,

I'm stopped on first step of boot for install FreeBSD from CD/DVD..
The first indicator | freezes, not rotating..

Tried with FreeBSD 7.1 i386, amd64. (DVD and CD)

FreeBSD 7.0 bootstrap give more info, but  freeze at the same step,
giving a sort of register dump with tons of "es: 00000" etc, too fast
for read.

My short boot process looks like that :

---------------------------------------------
Boot from CD/DVD : CD Loader 1.2

Building the boot loader arguments
Looking up /BOOT/LOADER... Found
Relocating the loader and the BTX
Starting the BTX loader

BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.02
Consoles : internal video/keyboard
BIOS CD is cd0
BIOS drive A: is disk0
BIOS 628kB/1963904Kb available memory

FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
(root at driscoll.css.buffalo.edu, Yhu Jan 1 07:21:03 UTC 2009)
|
----------------------------------------------

And that's all.

CPU :
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Athlon%2064%20X2%203800%2B%20-%20ADO3800IAA5CU%20(ADO3800CUBOX).html

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H

IDE "Raid" Controler : Promise FastTrak TX2000 ATA/133 Last bios rev :
2.00.0.33 (same behavior with 2.00.0.22)

Hard Disk are Seagate 80G, identical models.

Note the freeze occurs only if disks are plugged on the FastTrak ATA
Card. Boot is okay with no disk attached, but the card plugged.

The system is booting on the controler with an "existing" system
(WIN2K Recycling!)

The system also is booting and installing with Debian Lenny.

The boot and install are also OK with NetBSD 4.0 and 4.0.1 (i386 and
amd64). Just a note, with a degraded array the NetBSD boot is halted
(small console system), but after a bios-rebuild (RAID), the system
boot again.

After disabling some stuff in the BIOS (No SATA, no Floppy), changed
ATA Connector #1->#2, used other PCI Slot, etc. same freeze at boot.

The system is not OverClocked.

I've also upgraded the FastTrak Bios from 2.00.0.22 to 2.00.0.33
(Promise talk about a boot problem on CD corrected with 2.00.0.28).

I've plugged the Card and Drives onto another hardware (Compaq Evo
51s) and everything is okay with FreeBSB version (7.0,7.1 i386)

Is there a way to ftp,ssh or just run dmesg (without harddisk plugged)
from the first install menu stage ? (I dont see any message about the
FastTrak TX2000 during boot, but scroll too fast..)

I can also do an install to grab the dmesg output if you like more informations.

Thanks for reading..

PS :
Apologies for submiting a problem occuring on this model of GigaByte
motherboard, but such freeze is very unusual for me, used some OS'es
so far.

This system is planned to boot using TX2000 with all "datas" stored on
2 or more sata disks  using software raid with geom : dedicated array.

I can also install using SATA and drop the oldi ATA/133 stuff.. But I
like have separate boot/work array ATA:(/, usr, swap ) and separate
storage SATA,GEOM:(/var,/home,..)

--
Mathieu