system hangs on; "Probing devices, please wait (this can take a while)... "

[Garrett Cooper]

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Randi Harper <randi at freebsd.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 1:16 PM, Rich <rl001 at pacbell.net> wrote:
>> I'm trying to boot on the 9.0 Current or 8.0 Release CD to  install and it just
>> hangs on;
>>
>> "Probing devices,  please wait (this can take a while)... "
>>
>> I've waited almost an hour. how long is it supposed to take? It would be nice if
>> there were a status bar or spinning wheel or something to let you know if it's
>> doing anything or hung. What can I do to get this to install.
>>
>> AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core 2.20 GHz
>> 2G RAM
>>
>> Drive:
>> Seagate ST31000333AS
>
> This is probably just grasping at straws, but any chance your hard
> drive is failing?

Time to try checking the SMART data on the drive?
Cheers,
-Garrett