FreeBSD 11.1 on Soekris NET4501. Storage issue

[fml]

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 10:54:01AM -0500, Mike Tancsa wrote:
> > (aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): RES: 51 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 00
> > (aprobe0:ata0:0:0:0): Error 5, Retries exhausted
> > Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ada0s1a [ro]...
> > mountroot: waiting for device /dev/ada0s1a...
>
> Its been a LONG time since I booted one of these, but I seem to recall
> it was quite particular about setting how the disk was accessed.  I
> recall having to set something in /boot/loader.conf. Maybe the sata
> version ? dma mode ?

Mike, Julien,

thank you for your kind suggestions, I'll try both of them.
f.