ex-pfSense user having trouble with install

[172pilot]

Hi!  Long time pfSense user here, converting to OpnSense because of current versions still supporting my old hardware..

I have a Watchguard x750e, and I was able to go through the install and get everything working yesterday, and then unfortunately, at some random time, I bumped the power switch (hardware precariously setup at my desk for testing!!)

NOW, I can't get this thing to boot!  It comes up to the boot prompt, and the "spinning bar" starts, and then it either just reboots from there (about 90% of the time) or it freezes with a blank screen..

I am reasonably familiar with linux, but have never been a FreeBSD user, and know nothing about the boot process here.  My thought is that I have a corrupt filesystem and need to fsck or similar, but I really dont know where to go with this.

I will probably reload from scratch, and just chalk up all my work so far as a learning experience.. it wont take long to reload.. ( will take longer to patch!) but I'm curious about 2 things.

First - Is there a better way out here?  If this had happened on any random day after I put this firewall into use I'd have to scramble to get it working again (yes it's just for home, but family is a tough customer!)
and second - Is this typical?!  I'm used to linux handling unexpected power failures better than this, and at least letting me get into single user mode to do some diagnosis, but I can't seem to get anywhere on this serial console! (I can get into BIOS setup, and even reset BIOS to defaults by removing battery!)

Thanks in advance!  I look forward to using this - It looks really great!!

-Steve

[patcsy88]

Hi 172pilot,

It would be useful to provide some details e.g. 20.1.7, installation CF or IDE/SATA HDD etc.

I have had issues when the IDE/SATA HDD was not properly secured in place and it caused a corruption to the bootloader and hence was not able to bootstrap the kernel etc.