FREEBSD INSTALL

[jvmess]

I AM NEW TO UNIX-BEEN ADMIN FOR NT FOR AWHILE= TRYING TO INSTALL FREE BSD AND I AM NOT HAVING ALOT OF SUCCESS=I READ ENTIRE BOOK FROM WALNUT CREEK AND FOLLOWED INSTALL PROCEDURES WORD FOR WORD- I STILL KEEP GETTING SAME MESSAGE " No Boot loader >>freebsd/i386 BOOT DEFAULT:0:AD(0,A)/KERNEL BOOT: NO KERNEL " I DONT THINK INSTALL IS RUNNING FROM CD- WHEN I INITIALIZE INSTALL IT TAKES LIKE 2 SEC AND SAYS "INSTALL COMPLTETED WITH SOME ERRORS- ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED--PLEASE ALLOW ME TO DISCOVER UNIX

 

[Hokey]

Have you tried a different CD or a different computer.
I was just having the same problems with one PC earlier this month and as soon as I tried a different PC witht the same CD the install went flawlessly ... I have also had a bum CD about a year ago. To fix the bum CD problem I downloaded the ISO from FreeBSD's ftp site and burnt a fresh copy ....

Other than those two reason's I havent seen an install fail.

 

[abovebrd]

I just installed freebsd the otherday on a machine. I recived the sames error two or three times.

I was not able to pin point he problem, however I did get it installed. I think it had something to do with setting up the partitions and filesystems. I would pay close attention to this part of the install.



-Danny

 

[Guest_imported]

just a thought :
I had the same problems.The thing i wasnt doing right was not taking care of the IRQ conflicts during install time.after five-six unsuccessful installs , i did that and and it installed without any other problems.

 

[JaybOt]

Hi there,

The problem here i think, is with the disk. Like your self i too came from a NT background to FreeBSD. I found that if you reload a disk that has been formatted in dos/win the boot record info is uncorrect and for some reason is not always writable/correctable by the BSD install process.

Although the OS will appear to load, when you reboot it fails to find the boot record

Tthe fix is to get a win98 boot disk or any bootable flopy with a copy of FDISK.EXE and boot to DOS and issue the command FDISK /MBR or FDISK c:/MBR.

This will replace the Master Boot Record and point it to the freeBSD bootstrap loader.

Hope this helps.

I was so impressed i killed my NT4 server and replaced it with a BSD4.2 doing exactly the same things (file share, proxy,

http://www server)

and more (dns, POP+ SMTP, ftp) Took a good couple of months to learn everything, but well worth it!

Jaybot!
Ex NT guru - Don't loose hope, and Keep the faith!

 

[rycamor]

I'm not sure why I say this, but I think the syntax for wiping the Master Boot Loader is "fdisk/mbr" (without a space). Maybe I'm crazy, but I remember once trying this several times, and it would seem to work, but the MBR was still there, until a friend of mine who is a true guru corrected me.

As for replacing NT with FreeBSD, it is like going from training wheels to a full bicycle (remember those days?). You will feel a little unsteady at first, but once the feeling of freedom catches on, you will LOVE it.

 

[possumjohn]

I had the same problem because I installed on a completely new drive. There is a progam on the FreeBSD site that will write the correct master boot record to your boot drive. Go to FTP://ftp.FreeBSD,Org/pub/FreeBSD/tools. There you will find Boot.bin, bootinst.exe, fbsdboot.exe, and (most importantly) a readme.txt file.

HTH,
PJ

 

[PepsiJoe]

Just 1 small correction to PossumJohns entry, the url should be ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/tools/ (like I said just a small correction (replaced a comma with a period before .org)

 

[possumjohn]

Thanks for the correction PJ (PepsiJoe). I guess I need to put my fat fingers on a diet after the holidays <. For those who want to go to the correct site - FTP://ftp.FreeBSD.Org/pub/FreeBSD/tools.

Happy holidays,
PJ