Selected boot device failed.

mikethe1wheelnut

mikethe1wheelnut ..I have now tried that installation medium on -this- computer. Response: "Invalid partition table" ... of all things. ..the computer it worked on was much newer than these so..

mikethe1wheelnut

..will put ghost on the ventoy, see what happens..

mikethe1wheelnut

still doesn't work.

brianthehughes

Sounds like you have a couple things going on here.

Your USB could be damaged. It really doesn't take much to cause instability in USB media.

Best course of action - fresh ISO image to the drive. It does read like you've tried this.

Is the BIOS correctly configured to boot UEFI or Legacy as part of the standard boot sequence?

If you booted Legacy - USB and installed on the hard drive in Legacy (FreeBSD Bootloader) and then the system reboots and goes looking for EUFI boot partitions on the freshly installed hard drive this is the kind of error one receives.

The reverse...

If you booted EUFI - USB and installed on the hard drive in EFI / rEFInd and then the system reboots and goes looking for a Legacy boot partition on the freshly installed hard drive this is the kind of error one arrives at.

It is sometimes hard to notice if the one-time-boot of the install media is in UEFI or Legacy, but it certainly matters when the system restarts.

mikethe1wheelnut

brianthehughes

"Your USB could be damaged. It really doesn't take much to cause instability in USB media."

-this is the next thing I was going to try, re-flash ventoy, etc.

"If you booted Legacy - USB and installed on the hard drive in Legacy (FreeBSD Bootloader) and then the system reboots and goes looking for EUFI boot partitions on the freshly installed hard drive this is the kind of error one receives."

-huh? ..will give this a good hard look, sounds like greek.

mikethe1wheelnut

brianthehughes ok, I think I understand what you're talking about. when I do the installation, the default is legacy. probably it is possible to switch it to eufi, but I haven't bothered. the computer is set to boot legacy, so this likely isn't the problem. I have also re-flashed the ventoy, but no change. I'm definitely running out of options. I suppose it might be the usb-drive on the computer side mal-functioning.. I could stick in the usb -there- and try again, but this is really scraping the bottom of the bucket.

vimanuelt

mikethe1wheelnut I suggest not using Ventoy as it is know to have issues with GhostBSD. Use dd instead when burning the ISO to usb media.

mikethe1wheelnut

nope.

mikethe1wheelnut

...system diagnostics reports my brand-new hard-drive isn't installed!!!! but it is! it's right there! I even un-plugged it and plugged it back in, to be sure! ..could the contact have oxydized during the few hours I took the old one out for? or maybe the connector is busted?

brianthehughes

I would check both ends of the power cable, and both ends of the sata cable.

When diagnosing hardware detection by the BIOS, I have resorted to removing all drives and working through power and data cable swaps until it works.

If the old drive is at least detected (but failed) by the BIOS, it may be better to do this exercise of cable verification with the old drive, rather than subjecting the new drive to questionable plug and guess testing.

When you have proven data and power cable give it another go. Please confirm that when you get to install it is correctly showing the FreeBSD BIOS loader only option.

From: https://ghostbsd-documentation-portal.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/installation-guide/installation-guide.html

Please note: If the live system was booted in UEFI mode, the installer will show “FreeBSD UEFI loader only”. If booted in BIOS mode, the installer will show “FreeBSD BIOS loader only”.

mikethe1wheelnut

Given that I have been trying to install both ghost and free, I have felt justified in posting in both forums. Interesting advice from free: https://forums.FreeBSD.org/threads/no-boot-device-found.96493/post-686973. I'll do the same over there.

brianthehughes

mikethe1wheelnut Thanks for this. I have a machine doing some similar strange voodoo. Fails to boot after successful Live and Install as your situation. My efforts were pointing to BIOS updates but the thread has me considering controller kernel drivers. I’ll be checking out the advice from Argentum and T-Aoki later today (Post 20-21). The extra fun part is that my system refuses to boot ANY devices in Legacy (hence considering BIOS updates).

mikethe1wheelnut

brianthehughes ..giggle.. so I'm in good company then! miserable together! :-D ;-)

mikethe1wheelnut

I have now installed freeBSD on the laptop. The details are in the thread linked-to above. I ended up using UEFI. I will continue exploring both free and open, the goal being to learn how the operating systems work, at least somewhat, via the dive-in-the-deep-end approach. :-) ..I may well fail, and end-up snuggling up back here again ;-) ..nice to have a safety-net ;-)