3.4. Starting the Installation
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## 3.4. Starting the Installation

### Important:

By default, the installer will not make any changes to the disk(s) until after the following message:

    Last Chance: Are you SURE you want continue the installation?

    If you're running this on a disk with data you wish to save then WE
    STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO MAKE PROPER BACKUPS before proceeding!

    We can take no responsibility for lost disk contents!

The install can be exited at any time prior to this final warning without changing the contents of the hard drive. If there is a concern that something is configured incorrectly, turn the computer off before this point, and no damage will be done.

### 3.4.1. Booting

#### 3.4.1.1. Booting for the i386™

1. Turn on the computer. As it starts it should display an option to enter the system set up menu, or BIOS, commonly reached by keys like F2, F10, Del, or Alt+S. Use whichever keystroke is indicated on screen. In some cases the computer may display a graphic while it starts. Typically, pressing Esc will dismiss the graphic and display the boot messages.

2. Find the setting that controls which devices the system boots from. This is usually labeled as the “Boot Order” and commonly shown as a list of devices, such as `Floppy`, `CDROM`, `First Hard Disk`, and so on.

   If booting from the CD/DVD, make sure that the CDROM drive is selected. If booting from a USB disk, make sure that it is selected instead. When in doubt, consult the manual that came with the computer or its motherboard.

   Make the change, then save and exit. The computer should now restart.

3. If using a prepared a “bootable” USB stick, as described in Section 3.3.7, “Prepare the Boot Media”, plug in the USB stick before turning on the computer.

   If booting from CD/DVD, turn on the computer, and insert the CD/DVD at the first opportunity.

   ### Note:

   For FreeBSD/pc98, installation boot floppies are available and can be prepared as described in Section 3.3.7, “Prepare the Boot Media”. The first floppy disc will contain `boot.flp`. Put this floppy in the floppy drive to boot into the installer.

   If the computer starts up as normal and loads the existing operating system, then either:

   1. The disks were not inserted early enough in the boot process. Leave them in, and try restarting the computer.

   2. The BIOS changes did not work correctly. Redo that step until the right option is selected.

   3. That particular BIOS does not support booting from the desired media.

4. FreeBSD will start to boot. If booting from CD/DVD, messages will be displayed, similar to these:

   Booting from CD-Rom... 645MB medium detected CD Loader 1.2 Building the boot loader arguments Looking up /BOOT/LOADER... Found Relocating the loader and the BTX Starting the BTX loader BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.02 Consoles: internal video/keyboard BIOS CD is cd0 BIOS drive C: is disk0 BIOS drive D: is disk1 BIOS 636kB/261056kB available memory FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1 Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf /boot/kernel/kernel text=0x64daa0 data=0xa4e80+0xa9e40 syms=[0x4+0x6cac0+0x4+0x88e9d] \

   If booting from floppy disc, a display similar to this will be shown:

   Booting from Floppy... Uncompressing ... done BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.01 Console: internal video/keyboard BIOS drive A: is disk0 BIOS drive C: is disk1 BIOS 639kB/261120kB available memory FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1 Loading /boot/defaults/loader.conf /kernel text=0x277391 data=0x3268c+0x332a8 | Insert disk labelled "Kernel floppy 1" and press any key...

   Remove the `boot.flp` floppy, insert the next floppy, and press Enter. When prompted, insert the other disks as required.

5. The boot process will then display the FreeBSD boot loader menu:

   Figure 3.1. FreeBSD Boot Loader Menu

   Either wait ten seconds, or press Enter.

#### 3.4.1.2. Booting for SPARC64®

Most SPARC64® systems are set to boot automatically from disk. To install FreeBSD, boot over the network or from a CD/DVD and wait until the boot message appears. The message depends on the model, but should look similar to:

Sun Blade 100 (UltraSPARC-IIe), Keyboard Present Copyright 1998-2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. OpenBoot 4.2, 128 MB memory installed, Serial #51090132. Ethernet address 0:3:ba:b:92:d4, Host ID: 830b92d4.

If the system proceeds to boot from disk, press L1+A or Stop+A on the keyboard, or send a `BREAK` over the serial console using `~#` in tip(1) or cu(1) to get to the PROM prompt. It looks like this:

`ok` `ok {0}`

| This is the prompt used on systems with just one CPU.
| This is the prompt used on SMP systems and the digit indicates the number of the active CPU.

At this point, place the CD/DVD into the drive and from the PROM prompt, type `boot cdrom`.

### 3.4.2. Reviewing the Device Probe Results

The last few hundred lines that have been displayed on screen are stored and can be reviewed.

To review this buffer, press Scroll Lock to turn on scrolling in the display. Use the arrow keys or PageUp and PageDown to view the results. Press Scroll Lock again to stop scrolling.

Do this now, to review the text that scrolled off the screen when the kernel was carrying out the device probes. Text similar to Figure 3.2, “Typical Device Probe Results” will be displayed, although it will differ depending on the devices in the computer.

Figure 3.2. Typical Device Probe Results
avail memory = 253050880 (247120K bytes) Preloaded elf kernel "kernel" at 0xc0817000. Preloaded mfs_root "/mfsroot" at 0xc0817084. md0: Preloaded image </mfsroot> 4423680 bytes at 0xc03ddcd4 md1: Malloc disk Using $PIR table, 4 entries at 0xc00fde60 npx0: <math processor> on motherboard npx0: INT 16 interface pcib0: <Host to PCI bridge> on motherboard pci0: <PCI bus> on pcib0 pcib1:<VIA 82C598MVP (Apollo MVP3) PCI-PCI (AGP) bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0 pci1: <PCI bus> on pcib1 pci1: <Matrox MGA G200 AGP graphics accelerator> at 0.0 irq 11 isab0: <VIA 82C586 PCI-ISA bridge> at device 7.0 on pci0 isa0: <iSA bus> on isab0 atapci0: <VIA 82C586 ATA33 controller> port 0xe000-0xe00f at device 7.1 on pci0 ata0: at 0x1f0 irq 14 on atapci0 ata1: at 0x170 irq 15 on atapci0 uhci0 <VIA 83C572 USB controller> port 0xe400-0xe41f irq 10 at device 7.2 on pci 0 usb0: <VIA 83572 USB controller> on uhci0 usb0: USB revision 1.0 uhub0: VIA UHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr1 uhub0: 2 ports with 2 removable, self powered pci0: <unknown card> (vendor=0x1106, dev=0x3040) at 7.3 dc0: <ADMtek AN985 10/100BaseTX> port 0xe800-0xe8ff mem 0xdb000000-0xeb0003ff ir q 11 at device 8.0 on pci0 dc0: Ethernet address: 00:04:5a:74:6b:b5 miibus0: <MII bus> on dc0 ukphy0: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus0 ukphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto ed0: <NE2000 PCI Ethernet (RealTek 8029)> port 0xec00-0xec1f irq 9 at device 10. 0 on pci0 ed0 address 52:54:05:de:73:1b, type NE2000 (16 bit) isa0: too many dependant configs (8) isa0: unexpected small tag 14 orm0: <Option ROM> at iomem 0xc0000-0xc7fff on isa0 fdc0: <NEC 72065B or clone> at port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq2 on isa0 fdc0: FIFO enabled, 8 bytes threshold fd0: <1440-KB 3.5” drive> on fdc0 drive 0 atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> at port 0x60,0x64 on isa0 atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> flags 0x1 irq1 on atkbdc0 kbd0 at atkbd0 psm0: <PS/2 Mouse> irq 12 on atkbdc0 psm0: model Generic PS/@ mouse, device ID 0 vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0 sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0 sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300> sio0 at port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on isa0 sio0: type 16550A sio1 at port 0x2f8-0x2ff irq 3 on isa0 sio1: type 16550A ppc0: <Parallel port> at port 0x378-0x37f irq 7 on isa0 pppc0: SMC-like chipset (ECP/EPP/PS2/NIBBLE) in COMPATIBLE mode ppc0: FIFO with 16/16/15 bytes threshold plip0: <PLIP network interface> on ppbus0 ad0: 8063MB <IBM-DHEA-38451> [16383/16/63] at ata0-master UDMA33 acd0: CD-RW <LITE-ON LTR-1210B> at ata1-slave PIO4 Mounting root from ufs:/dev/md0c /stand/sysinstall running as init on vty0

Check the probe results carefully to make sure that FreeBSD found all the devices. If a device was not found, it will not be listed. A custom kernel can be used to add in support for devices which are not in the `GENERIC` kernel.

After the device probe, the menu shown in Figure 3.3, “Selecting Country Menu” will be displayed. Use the arrow key to choose a country, region, or group. Then press Enter to set the country.

Figure 3.3. Selecting Country Menu

If United States is selected as the country, the standard American keyboard map will be used. If a different country is chosen, the following menu will be displayed. Use the arrow keys to choose the correct keyboard map and press Enter.

Figure 3.4. Selecting Keyboard Menu

After the country selection, the sysinstall(8) main menu will display.

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This, and other documents, can be downloaded from http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/

For questions about FreeBSD, read the documentation before contacting <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.