In my last build of FreeBSD/amd64, installworld failed with the following error:
btxld:No such file or directory
It was a little cryptic, specially because it was a fresh install, but after a little internet search I found a possible cause/solution for the issue. The date/time was out of sync...and that was indeed the cause!
You can check the date/time by simply running this:
# date
To sync it I ran:
# adjkerntz -i
Then I re-installed world and everything went fine.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Metallica Back to the Bay Area + Free Downloads
Very exciting news that Metallica will be returning to the Bay Area (December 2009) for another concert! The last one in Oakland rocked!
And I've been enjoying the tour updates with all the interesting (historical) facts. You can also download the tracks of each concert (paid) and a bunch of other free downloads of older concerts.
And I've been enjoying the tour updates with all the interesting (historical) facts. You can also download the tracks of each concert (paid) and a bunch of other free downloads of older concerts.
FreeBSD and Intel Core 2 Quad
This was a very silly mistake but since I always ran FreeBSD on Pentium machines then I always installed the i386 version; however, if you have an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU don't do that!!!
Intel Core 2 Quad is a 64-bit architecture and in order to take advantage of the four CPUs then you must install FreeBSD/amd64! You also need to have SMP enabled in the Kernel (which is already a standard in all the latest releases).
For more info, please read the FreeBSD hardware requirements page.
Intel Core 2 Quad is a 64-bit architecture and in order to take advantage of the four CPUs then you must install FreeBSD/amd64! You also need to have SMP enabled in the Kernel (which is already a standard in all the latest releases).
For more info, please read the FreeBSD hardware requirements page.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Iron and Wine Free Download
Just an exciting email that I received today and would like to share with anyone who likes Iron and Wine.
There's a free download of eight tracks which are alternate takes of songs from the Shepherd's Dog album...and they sound great!
You can get it from their site www.ironandwine.com or here's the direct link in case it goes away for some reason free songs.
There's a free download of eight tracks which are alternate takes of songs from the Shepherd's Dog album...and they sound great!
You can get it from their site www.ironandwine.com or here's the direct link in case it goes away for some reason free songs.
Stuck in Windows XP Safe Mode Loop
One day I was trying to delete one of those 'file in use' type of files so I jumped into Windows XP Safe Mode. However, instead of just hitting F8 during start up, I did the terrible mistake of running 'msconfig' then setting the /SAFEBOOT flag in the BOOT.INI tab.
Well, due to some glitch, whenever I got to the Safe Mode login prompt the system would restart leaving me in this infinite loop as I couldn't get out of it since the /SAFEBOOT flag was set in boot.ini. What a nightmare!
So here's what I had to do to fix this problem. Basically you need a way to access your drive and modify C:\boot.ini.
- Download NTFS4DOS, install it in your computer and create a bootable Floppy of CD.
- Boot from that Floppy or CD*
- Once you're at the A:\ prompt, just type this:
A:\ C:\windows\system32\edit C:\boot.ini
- Now navigate through the file with your arrow keys and move to the right. Remove (using Backspace) /SAFEBOOT:MINIMAL
- Use the Alt key to access the menu options. File->Save then File->Exit
- Remove the Floppy or CD and restart your computer (Ctrl+Alt+Del)
Welcome back to your computer!
As a last step after logging in, you should run 'msconfig' again then in the General tab select Normal Startup.
* You might need to modify your BIOS to allow botting from a floppy or CD. Restart your computer and hit F1 right after boot. When in the BIOS, just make sure that in the boot order, your floppy and/or CD comes before your HD.
You could remove your harddrive and access it from another computer with one of those USB enclosures or go the *nix route such as from an Ubuntu bootable CD and then mount the C:\ drive.
Good luck and hope this helps.
Well, due to some glitch, whenever I got to the Safe Mode login prompt the system would restart leaving me in this infinite loop as I couldn't get out of it since the /SAFEBOOT flag was set in boot.ini. What a nightmare!
So here's what I had to do to fix this problem. Basically you need a way to access your drive and modify C:\boot.ini.
- Download NTFS4DOS, install it in your computer and create a bootable Floppy of CD.
- Boot from that Floppy or CD*
- Once you're at the A:\ prompt, just type this:
A:\ C:\windows\system32\edit C:\boot.ini
- Now navigate through the file with your arrow keys and move to the right. Remove (using Backspace) /SAFEBOOT:MINIMAL
- Use the Alt key to access the menu options. File->Save then File->Exit
- Remove the Floppy or CD and restart your computer (Ctrl+Alt+Del)
Welcome back to your computer!
As a last step after logging in, you should run 'msconfig' again then in the General tab select Normal Startup.
* You might need to modify your BIOS to allow botting from a floppy or CD. Restart your computer and hit F1 right after boot. When in the BIOS, just make sure that in the boot order, your floppy and/or CD comes before your HD.
You could remove your harddrive and access it from another computer with one of those USB enclosures or go the *nix route such as from an Ubuntu bootable CD and then mount the C:\ drive.
Good luck and hope this helps.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
How to fix FreeBSD "Can't work out which disk we are booting from"
I had just installed a fresh FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE, cvsup the latest sources and ports and followed my standard procedure to build and install a new world and kernel (without any big changes).
Everything ran beautifully and after installworld I was ready to reboot and here's where the problem started. Upon reboot, the system wouldn't load!
It was getting stuck with the following error:
Can't work out which disk we are booting from.
Guessed BIOS device 0xffffffff not found by probes, defaulting to disk0
After some online research I found a lead to fix the problem...well, at least to get your system started again.
Here's what you'll need to get started:
1) The installation CD/DVD that you had just used to install this release
2) A LiveFS CD/DVD. You can get it from the FreeBSD site. I'm a i386 so here's the direct link
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/7.0/
Now time to get to work:
1) Boot from your installation CD/DVD
2) Select your region which will you take you to the usual sysinstall screen
3) Select the Fixit option to repair an installation
4) Select the CD/DVD option (#2) and it will ask you to insert the LiveFS CD/DVD
5) You should now be on the #fixit: prompt
6) Make a directory where we will mount the old root FS
# mkdir /old
7) I assume you know your drive and where you had installed your FreeBSD partition. If you need a little reminder, you can run the command below to see your drives. I only have one at "ad0"
# dmesg
8) And to verify you can look at /dev
# ls /dev
9) The root partition ends with an 'a'. So let's mount it.
# mount -t ufs /dev/ad0s1a /old
10) We will now replace the faulty /boot/loader (also back it up just in case)
# cd /old/boot
# cp loader loader.bad
# cp loader.old loader
# exit
Now just exit the sysinstall screen, remove the LiveFS CD/DVD and your system should boot up normally.
I found this Wiki to be helpful and it also provides a patch which I haven't tried yet.
http://wiki.freebsd.org/JeremyChadwick/Commonly_reported_issues
Everything ran beautifully and after installworld I was ready to reboot and here's where the problem started. Upon reboot, the system wouldn't load!
It was getting stuck with the following error:
Can't work out which disk we are booting from.
Guessed BIOS device 0xffffffff not found by probes, defaulting to disk0
After some online research I found a lead to fix the problem...well, at least to get your system started again.
Here's what you'll need to get started:
1) The installation CD/DVD that you had just used to install this release
2) A LiveFS CD/DVD. You can get it from the FreeBSD site. I'm a i386 so here's the direct link
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/7.0/
Now time to get to work:
1) Boot from your installation CD/DVD
2) Select your region which will you take you to the usual sysinstall screen
3) Select the Fixit option to repair an installation
4) Select the CD/DVD option (#2) and it will ask you to insert the LiveFS CD/DVD
5) You should now be on the #fixit: prompt
6) Make a directory where we will mount the old root FS
# mkdir /old
7) I assume you know your drive and where you had installed your FreeBSD partition. If you need a little reminder, you can run the command below to see your drives. I only have one at "ad0"
# dmesg
8) And to verify you can look at /dev
# ls /dev
9) The root partition ends with an 'a'. So let's mount it.
# mount -t ufs /dev/ad0s1a /old
10) We will now replace the faulty /boot/loader (also back it up just in case)
# cd /old/boot
# cp loader loader.bad
# cp loader.old loader
# exit
Now just exit the sysinstall screen, remove the LiveFS CD/DVD and your system should boot up normally.
I found this Wiki to be helpful and it also provides a patch which I haven't tried yet.
http://wiki.freebsd.org/JeremyChadwick/Commonly_reported_issues
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Dealing with FreeBSD MountRoot Prompt
You will bump into a FreeBSD <mountroot> prompt if your system failed to correctly mount your root device. This normally happens when you modify your hardware and the disk configuration changes.
It's actually very simple to solve this situation and to get your system up and running again. If you're not familiar with the mount command then this a great time to familiarize yourself. You can read the man page at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mount&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+6.2-RELEASE&format=html.
Solving the problem. When you get the <mountroot> prompt, the dmesg info displayed right above it will pretty much tell you all that you need to know.
First, the message will probably be something like it 'couldn't mount root from ufs:/dev/ad8s1a' (or whatever your disk was). And above it, you should see your new disks set up (i.e. ad0 19877 Seagate, ad1 19871 Maxtor, etc). You should be able to recognize your old drive by HD size+brand or some other subtle difference (here we will assume that your drive became ad0 from ad8).
At the <mountroot> prompt you can type '?' to get a list of devices which should also display 'ad0s1a'. And that's what we are looking for. Then type (you'll be taken to single-user mode so that you can fix the rest)
ufs:/dev/ad0s1a
In single-user mode, you can look at your current fstab file where the mount devices are specified.
# cat /etc/fstab
Then mount your /var, /tmp, /usr just like in your fstab but changing the disk number
# mount -t ufs /dev/ad0s1d /var
# mount -t ufs /dev/ad0s1e /tmp
# mount -t ufs /dev/ad0s1f /usr
You can confirm your mounts by typing either of these two commands:
# df
# mount -p
Make root writable so that you can update fstab
# mount -uw /
Update fstab with the correct disk IDs.
# vi /etc/fstab
Save it and reboot
Welcome back to your system! :)
It's actually very simple to solve this situation and to get your system up and running again. If you're not familiar with the mount command then this a great time to familiarize yourself. You can read the man page at http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mount&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+6.2-RELEASE&format=html.
Solving the problem. When you get the <mountroot> prompt, the dmesg info displayed right above it will pretty much tell you all that you need to know.
First, the message will probably be something like it 'couldn't mount root from ufs:/dev/ad8s1a' (or whatever your disk was). And above it, you should see your new disks set up (i.e. ad0 19877 Seagate, ad1 19871 Maxtor, etc). You should be able to recognize your old drive by HD size+brand or some other subtle difference (here we will assume that your drive became ad0 from ad8).
At the <mountroot> prompt you can type '?' to get a list of devices which should also display 'ad0s1a'. And that's what we are looking for. Then type (you'll be taken to single-user mode so that you can fix the rest)
ufs:/dev/ad0s1a
In single-user mode, you can look at your current fstab file where the mount devices are specified.
# cat /etc/fstab
Then mount your /var, /tmp, /usr just like in your fstab but changing the disk number
# mount -t ufs /dev/ad0s1d /var
# mount -t ufs /dev/ad0s1e /tmp
# mount -t ufs /dev/ad0s1f /usr
You can confirm your mounts by typing either of these two commands:
# df
# mount -p
Make root writable so that you can update fstab
# mount -uw /
Update fstab with the correct disk IDs.
# vi /etc/fstab
Save it and reboot
Welcome back to your system! :)
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