I found this fix on a mailing list archive using Google: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-i386/2004-December/001958.html
But I have no idea how to apply it.
Can anybody help out here?
Looks like you've found the right answer there. Unfortunately you've hit Catch22: in order to fix the boot problem, you need to patch the kernel. In order to patch the kernel, you need a running system. In order to get a running system you need to fix the boot problem...
Probably your best bet is to pull the disk out of your i7520 box and attach it to some other machine where you can install FreeBSD on it. At the same time try applying the patch from PR i386/74829 and building a kernel with it applied. If you can extract the patch either from the PR (http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=74829) or the e-mail you quoted, then to apply it:
# cd /usr/src
# patch -p 2 < patch.txtNote that extracting the patch may be harder than you expect, as mailing systems and cut'n'paste tend to wrap lines or convert tabs to spaces and other such damage.
Then rebuild the GENERIC kernel and install it onto your new drive. Instruction for building a kernel are here:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/kernelconfig-building.html
Don't let your Gentoo experience tempt you into trying to chroot yourself onto the new drive -- while that could certainly be made to work, it's not something that gets done very often so you'ld end up having to debug things as you went along. Just use sysinstall(8) to install on the appropriate disk while it's attached to a spare system, and then boot up your spare system from that drive to do the kernel builds.
Cheers,
Matthew
--
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 8 Dane Court Manor
School Rd
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