Graphical installer TrueOS FAILED on ZOTAC BOX. mtrr ERROR.

[fantore]

I tried today to install TrueOS, .img file (usb image). TrueOS-2017-07-05-x64-USB.img on this box: https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/zbox-ci325-nano Graphics: Graphics Engine Intel HD Graphics, Video Output HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA.

Starting graphical installer (Autodetect) I got this error:

failed to set mtrr: invalid argument

and stops.

Any workaround to fix this? Thanks in advance.

[beanpole135]

Couple quick questions:

1. How did you burn the IMG file to your USB stick? Did you follow the guidlines listed in the TrueOS handbook?
2. Does your BIOS have any special Windows-only boot options enabled? If so, make sure you turn those off.

[fantore]

Thanks Ken for your response and help.

0) No weird win settings on BIOS. Nothing changed.

1) I burned the image from linux using ddrescue. Checked sh256 checksum before. ddrescue -D --force TrueOS-2017-07-05-x64-USB.img /dev/sdb as I usually do it with msd cards for my blackberry (installed freebsd that way on it). anyway why is this impacted? Just curious about it...

2) Burned again the image following your link instructions: dd if=TrueOS-2017-07-05-x64-USB.img of=/dev/sdb bs=10024 287546+1 records in 287546+1 records out 2882364928 bytes (2.9 GB) copied, 307.475 s, 9.4 MB/s

in linux bs=1m as stated in the documentation is not accepted.

3) Graphics installer started ok. ... good!

4) I continued>TrueOS installing process on my GPT previosly partitioned hard disk (with ubuntu linux installed using first 3 partitions) half disk was left for TrueOS.

After a long install process, I got an error message notification with an option to save a log file. I had to repeat 2,3 times the process (no log was saved on usb stick) and finally with a usb stick inserted from the beginning the log file was finally copied.

I attach that log file. Please advice....

Regards, trueos-install-debug.log

[beanpole135]

1. Some Linux burning tools make "Linux-y" assumptions about boot block sizes and such which are not valid for FreeBSD - which is why we always recommend using dd from a Linux system rather than one of the other utilities. 2/3. Good - looks like the USB "burning" process was causing hte problem then.
2. It looks like this is the error from the log

   Running: mkdir /mnt/boot/efi
   Running: mount -t msdosfs /dev/ada0p /mnt/boot/efi
   mount_msdosfs: /dev/ada0p: No such file or directory
   EXITERROR: Error 1: mount -t msdosfs /dev/ada0p /mnt/boot/efi

   That looks like it is failing when trying to create the GPT/UEFI boot block.

Your partition layout looks a big strange too:

# DISK INFO ada0 
/dev/ada0
/dev/ada0p1
/dev/ada0p2
/dev/ada0p3
/dev/ada0p4
/dev/ada0p5
/dev/ada0p6
/dev/ada0p7
/dev/ada0p8
/dev/ada0p9
=>       34  976773101  ada0  GPT  (466G)
         34       2014        - free -  (1.0M)
       2048    1048576     1  ms-basic-data  (512M)
    1050624    2097152     2  linux-swap  (1.0G)
    3147776  125829120     3  linux-data  (60G)
  128976896  314572800     4  linux-data  (150G)
  443549696  498726912     5  freebsd-zfs  (238G)
  942276608    8388608     9  freebsd-swap  (4.0G)
  950665216     235520        - free -  (115M)
  950900736    8388608     8  freebsd-swap  (4.0G)
  959289344     235520        - free -  (115M)
  959524864    8388608     7  freebsd-swap  (4.0G)
  967913472     235520        - free -  (115M)
  968148992    8388608     6  freebsd-swap  (4.0G)
  976537600     235535        - free -  (115M)

Notice that you have 4 different FreeBSD swap partitions - those might have been from all teh different times you tried to do the installation though. Since this log file is from the last attempt and might not reflect the error from the first (since this error looks like it is related to the device layout which we know is a bit messed up from all the swap partitions), I would recommend booting up one of your Linux partitions and cleaning out all those extra partitions (with something like gparted or similar) - to ensure that you have a clean, unallocated/free block of space on the end of the drive.

We have seen occasional issues where a Linux distro left boot data behind in a supposedly "empty" partition which will cause an error when installing FreeBSD. Doing some quick cleaning of the free space might resolve the problem for you then.

Another option would be to download/use the image for the UNSTABLE version of TrueOS (newer version of the rolling-release track: it might already have a fix for this kind of issue). The STABLE releases are only updated every 6 months - and we are to the point now where the current STABLE image is starting to lag quite a bit behind the latest changes in TrueOS. The newest UNSTABLE images are uploading right now, and should be available here in a couple hours.

[fantore]

Thanks for your response.

1, From linux I deleted ZFS parttion and swap partitions created during failed install process. Just live half of target HD free.

2. Repeated install process using http://download.trueos.org/unstable/amd64/TrueOS-Server-2017-10-16-UNSTABLE-x64-USB.img .

3. Got same results, a notification error at the end of the process. Please see attached log file generated.

Regards, trueos-install-debug.log

[beanpole135]

Ok, I had a talk with Kris and looked over your log, and he said it looks like your disk layout is currently installed with the older non-EFI system layout, but you are trying to install TrueOS with UEFI support - causing the error when it is trying to create/register with the EFI partition (which does not exist). You probably have your BIOS set to try "UEFI First" - causing the trouble: so just change that too boot "Legacy Only" or "Legacy First" and it should work for you. Otherwise if you really want to use UEFI, you will need to re-install every OS on that disk with UEFI support enabled.

[fantore]

Thanks for your response. This is what I did:

0. clean up ZFS and swap partitions.
1. BIOS: changed boot mode to LEGACY ONLY. as advised. See attached picture. Problem: Internal HD and TrueOS USB stick does not boot. I used a boot override in another BIOS screen to boot directly TrueOS installer. Noted it booted in a low resolution mode and entering graphics mode, the Pc got freezed, I had to reboot.
2. BIOS: disable Internal HD disk (kept boot mode in legacy) see attached picture. True OS installer booted ok, in hi res mode, repeated procedure, and I got same error, I am attaching log file. :-(... please advice. Regards, trueos-install-debug.log ![Uploading 20171024_090339.jpg…]()

[fantore]

Ok, after all this time... I give up. This is my third time trying to test TrueOS... No success :(. Anyway, thanks for your help and support.