On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 07:48:07PM -0700, L Goodwin wrote: > Is there a way to run the "FDISK" tool outside of the freebds installer? > How do I change the disk configuration without reinstalling freebsd > every @[EMAIL PROTECTED] time?
Yes, all sysinstall does is collect the information and run fdisk for you. See the man page (enter man fdisk ) It can be a little hard to read at first. The fdisk and bsdlabel don't follow the normal man page form. One thing you must know; you cannot run fdisk on a drive that is in active use. If you booted from that drive or if you are CD-ed in to a file system on the drive, the system will not let you write to the drive using fdisk. You can only use fdisk to read the slice table and run prototype setups that do not actually write out to the disk. Trying to write to a drive that is active is a very popular mistake when attempting to use fdisk. So, read the fdisk man page and then come back with some more specific questions if you need. > I really want to set up a FreeBSD server and appreciate the learning > experience, but it's way past the point where I should have switched to an OS > that will actually run on my client's server. If I don't get it going > tonight, I'm going to install the first Linux distribution that says "Hey, > Sailor"... =8-0 Guess you will need to follow the installation instructions in the FreeBSD handbook more carefully. > BTW, I burned a freeSBIE 2.0.1 Live CD, but have no idea what to do with it. > Yes, I am pathetically clueless. Thanks for your patience! Just boot it up and run it. It will give you a very basic working environment. Then do something like you might in a UNIX system, like ls or cd or df or whatever. > > Derek Ragona <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: One other thing that > might be happening is if the geometry of the drive isn't allowing an > extended translation because of the age of your hardware, you may need to > keep the boot partition, that is the entire boot partition (not talking > slices here) within the first 1024 cylinders. In the partition tool in > sysinstall you can change the display to show different units, and one of > those will be cylinders. The 1024 cylinder limit is from older BIOS > translations and if the boot partition extended beyond 1024 the system > will give that same error you are getting. If the machine is built any less than about 11 years ago, this doesn't apply. > With older hardware you may need to use multiple partitions instead of > slices. You can have 4 partitons on a drive (4 is hardcoded in the > partition table size and a location) so you can add additional partitions > for swap and /usr if you want. Any partitions you use for filesystems > like /usr the boot manager will see and offer to boot them. They won't > boot of course. Swap partitions are ignored by the boot manager. This is mostly incorrect and even backwards. First of all, there are 4 slices possible on a drive (or raid set for all that matters). Microsoft tends to call slices "Primary Partitions". Slices are created and managed by the fdisk utility. Fdisk also writes the Master Boot Record (MBR) (but not the boot sector). In FreeBSD you can divide each slice up in to partitions which are identified as a..h, although 'c' is reserved. These partitions are created and managed by the FreeBSD bsdlabel utility (or disklabel in older versions). Bsdlabel also writes the boot sector. > Otherwise, I'd suspect it is a problem with the 6.2 you are using then. > If you try with a boot within the 1024 (I wouldn't push that to the > limit I'd say try like 950 cylinders) then I would try an earlier > version such as 6.1 or 6.0. > The whole issue of 1024 cylinders limit for bootable file systems went away with improved BIOS about 11 years ago. If you have a system old enough to have the problem, you should be updating the BIOS rather than trying to accomodate the limit. ////jerry > -Derek > > -- > This message has been scanned for viruses and > dangerous content by MailScanner, and is > believed to be clean. > MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support. > > > --------------------------------- > It's here! Your new message! > Get new email alerts with the free Yahoo! Toolbar. > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" > _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
