Can't install freebsd/pcbsd

[Andreas Junius]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 3:45 PM, <doug at safeport.com> wrote:

> There were more typos and bad grammar than good information in my previous
> response. What I ment to say:
>
>   Go into the BIOS and make sure the CD is first in the boot list. Then
>   make sure another system can read and boot the FreeBSD CD. After that
>   if you can still not boot the install program on the acer, you either
>   have the FreeBSD CD on a CD the acer can not read or the CDROM on the
>   acer is bad.
>
> If there is still an OS on your laptop find what kind of CD it can read,
> test that and burn a FreeBSD ISO image on that type of CD. Some of the
> older drives will not read the the 700MB CDs or R/W Cds. Also some brands
> (or maybe all) CDs do not have an indefinite shelf life. I forget which
> brand but I just tossed about 50 CDs becuase I could not write on them.
>
> Again, I guess I was tired, sorry for the previous effort.
>
> _____
> Douglas Denault
> http://www.safeport.com
> doug at safeport.com
> Voice: 301-217-9220
>  Fax: 301-217-9277
>


I got it finally installed after some playing with the bios settings. The
Acer has a switch, called silent boot, which displays an image instead of
the boot messages. I disabled this setting and it was possible to start the
insallation routine. The problem could be triggered by some kind of strange
timing problem. It looks if it were looking for data first on the CD-Rom
and directly after the first reads on the harddisk. I had to install it
twice to get these problems fixed.

However the problem didn't diappear completely. I've now the same problem
on every startup. FreeBSD gets loaded, it displays the boot options and it
reboots immediately again and again.

I found a workaround though. The F12 key should lead to a boot menu,
however it does only defer the startup process to a degree (without showing
anything). That's obviously enough time to get over the position where it
starts to loop and the OS gets startet properly.

I'd love to fix this, too. Any ideas where to search or what to do are
highly appreciated!

Cheers,
Andy