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NetBSD Installation and Upgrading Have trouble getting NetBSD on your toaster?

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Old 14th March 2017
staus staus is offline
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Default NetBSD Installation Fails

Thought I would give NetBSD a test, but I can never get the install disk to discover hard drives on my laptop or desktop computers which I have tried FreeBSD and OpenBSD and tens of linux distros with no problems (at least not installation problems).
I keep getting wd0: IDENTIFY FAILED.
Thanks
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Old 14th March 2017
shep shep is offline
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I think this problem is related to leftover gpt partitioning - at least everytime I had the problem if I "zero out" the gtp table and the back-up table at the end of the drive I have alway been able to install OpenBSD/NetBSD mbr boot loader and have it "find" the hard drive.

The two ways to do this are
1.dd or
or
2. use the "zap" utility in gdisk.
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Old 15th March 2017
staus staus is offline
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Thanks. I will try the gdisk method to clear the gpt table.
I tried using the fdisk command with the NetBSD installer, but that couldn't see my disk either.
I used RIP Linux to allow gdisk to perform the expert command "z". Then I wiped out the gpt, but not the MBR. Rebooted the NetBSD 64 bit 7.0.2 installation disk, and voila - still cannot identify wd0.

For the heck of it, I downloaded the just released rc of DragonflyBSD. I am writing this using that system, which worked OK (on the disk that NetBSD can't identify)

I am about to give up on NetBSD. Why oh why is it so difficult to install?

I was hoping to test it to see if performance wise it beats FreeBSD or OpenBSD. As well as using less ram.
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Old 15th March 2017
rockworldmi rockworldmi is offline
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Have you tried with NetBSD RC?
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Old 15th March 2017
rockworldmi rockworldmi is offline
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Or get 7.1 https://www.netbsd.org/releases/form...etBSD-7.1.html
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Old 15th March 2017
shep shep is offline
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Quote:
Then I wiped out the gpt, but not the MBR.
I usually wipe out both. Does the dmesg from NetBSD installer show that the drive subsystems are installed? NetBSD installer allows you to exit the installer to a second console and check the dmesg.

Another potential problem can occur with some uefi motherboards.
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Old 16th March 2017
staus staus is offline
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I tried the latest version of NetBSD (7.1). Still refuses to identify my disk. Motherboard is an older non uefi Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3.
I'm giving up now.
Thanks for all who tried to help.
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Old 22nd March 2017
comet--berkeley comet--berkeley is offline
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Using the new NetBSD 7.1 amd64 cdrom,
I had a similar problem with an old HP Z400 system.

I tried to install NetBSD 7.1 but the installer failed on the newfs /dev/rwd0a ... and said that the hard drive was "read only".

The machine has no EFI and uses MBR for partitioning but
showed this bogus entry in the system log:

dk0 at wd0: EFI system partition
dk0: 102400 block at 2048 type msdos

To fix it I booted a slackware linux install dvd and ran this from the command line:

fixparts /dev/sda

Then type "q" for quit.

It removed an old gpt table at the end of my disk. Then I was able to install NetBSD with no disk problems.

fixparts is a program from the gptfdisk group of GPT partitioning programs.

http://www.rodsbooks.com/fixparts/index.html
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Old 30th March 2017
smes smes is offline
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Hi everybody,
just registered to help out. I'm pretty sure I know what the issue could be. I had the same issue with my Gumstix ARM recently and described it on the mailing list:
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-ke...msg021658.html

afaik the easiest way is to verify if you are also hit by this:
- Install NetBSD 6.1.5.
- should boot fine
- first command on on non-root disk (not only partition - e.g. use a cdrom as a root partition):
disklabel wd0
and do
disklabel wd0
again. The output should differ, the first output should print fake values, the second the real values.

If you know how to build and install a kernel there are other options to verify of course.
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Old 2nd April 2017
staus staus is offline
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I was finally able to get NetBSD installed. A misleading relatively new message googled up led me to think that the SATA BIOS must be set to IDE mode. Since my Asus motherboard defaults to IDE, I thought nothing more of it. A googled up message from 2009 or so stated that AHCI mode must be set. Doing this in the BIOS allowed diskopen to finally detect my drive. It finally installed OK.
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