Missing boot loader

Questions and support problems dealing directly with the FreeBSD Operating System.
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boesi
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:11 am

Missing boot loader

Post by boesi »

Hi,

I had a working GhostBSD installation, but suddenly I'm getting "Missing boot loader".

So I put the current ISO of GhostBSD MATE 64-bit to an USB stick and booted from it.

My disk configuration:

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ghostbsd@ghostbsd:~ % gpart show
=>       34  976773101  ada0  GPT  (466G)
         34          6        - free -  (3.0K)
         40       2048     1  bios-boot  (1.0M)
       2088  960043008     2  freebsd-zfs  (458G)
  960045096   16723968     3  freebsd-swap  (8.0G)
  976769064       4071        - free -  (2.0M)

=>        34  7814037101  ada1  GPT  (3.6T)
          34        2014        - free -  (1.0M)
        2048  7814033408     1  freebsd-ufs  (3.6T)
  7814035456        1679        - free -  (840K)

=>        40  5860533088  ada2  GPT  (2.7T)
          40  5860533080     1  freebsd-zfs  (2.7T)
  5860533120           8        - free -  (4.0K)

=>      64  30282881  da0  GPT  (14G)
        64      1552    1  ms-basic-data  (776K)
      1616      5760    2  efi  (2.8M)
      7376   4903580    3  ms-basic-data  (2.3G)
   4910956  25371989       - free -  (12G)

=>  63  5697  da0p2  MBR  (2.8M)
    63  5697         - free -  (2.8M)

=>      64  30282881  iso9660/GhostBSD  GPT  (14G)
        64      1552                 1  ms-basic-data  (776K)
      1616      5760                 2  efi  (2.8M)
      7376   4903580                 3  ms-basic-data  (2.3G)
   4910956  25371989                    - free -  (12G)

=>  63  5697  gpt/EFI%20boot%20partition  MBR  (2.8M)
    63  5697                              - free -  (2.8M)

=>  63  5697  iso9660/GhostBSDp2  MBR  (2.8M)
    63  5697                      - free -  (2.8M)
It is a rather old computer with no UEFI, so I think the partition bios-boot is right, although I read everywhere that there should be a freebsd-boot partition.

Then I did:

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ghostbsd@ghostbsd:~ % sudo gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptzfsboot -i 1 ada0
partcode written to ada0p1
bootcode written to ada0
But it didn't change anything. I still can't boot my system.

So where is my boot loader gone? And how do I get it back?
boesi
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:11 am

Re: Missing boot loader

Post by boesi »

Some more information:

The zfs pool tank had an error:

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ghostbsd@ghostbsd:~ % sudo zpool import tank
   pool: tank
     id: 16879225985101678740
  state: ONLINE
 status: The pool was last accessed by another system.
 action: The pool can be imported using its name or numeric identifier and
	the '-f' flag.
   see: http://illumos.org/msg/ZFS-8000-EY
 config:

	tank        ONLINE
	  ada0p2    ONLINE
I cleared that error with

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ghostbsd@ghostbsd:~ % sudo zpool clear tank
But I still can't boot my system.

Recently I upgraded the pool tank to v28. I thought I had restarted the computer successfully afterwards, but maybe not.

What I did right before the computer didn't start anymore: I deleted a directory on the ufs disk accidently. No big deal, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to test if I could undelete this directory. I attached the disk with a usb sata adapter to a Win10 notebook, but used the power supply from the main computer. I started the computer, so the disk would get power - from this moment on I got the message "Missing boot loader".

I still get access to all disks with the live cd, everything seems alright, except GhostBSD won't boot :cry:
boesi
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:11 am

Re: Missing boot loader

Post by boesi »

Is nobody here able to help?

Some more information: I've installed GhostBSD to a spare disk and there I have a "normal" disk configuration with a freebsd-boot partition. So what is the purpose of this bios-boot partition and where does it come from?

Some more strange thing: I thought my bootmanager was grub, but none of the grub-tools are installed. I have the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg, but not /usr/local/etc/default/grub.
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