Re: backup drive bootabel
Looks OK to me -- you have got backups of anything important on that disk haven't you? This sort of operation has a high risk of trashing the drive contents if you don't get things quite right. Thank you so much Matthew, I just did an ls of the drive on da1. can I assume that the contents of this drive did not get trashed? thanks so much for all your assistance. excellent responses. Happy New Year, - Noah Yes, you'll need to set the slice (da1s1) bootable if you want this as an alternate boot device. That shouldn't affect the default auto boot process performed by the boot loader, unless you interrupt the boot process and change the device selection there manually. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backup drive bootabel
On Mon, Jan 05, 2004 at 04:08:31AM -0800, Noah wrote: I just did an ls of the drive on da1. can I assume that the contents of this drive did not get trashed? I should think so. The sort of disk trashing you would experience with those low level commands would tend to leave the drive unmountable -- and as you can mount it and see the contents, I'd say you're pretty much home and dry. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backup drive bootabel
To deal with a standard MBR, you have to use fdisk(8). Try: # fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr -i da1 This will walk you through the current settings interactively, letting you generate a slice table, change the active slice and rewrite the boot code. Of course, just to confuse you, fdisk(8) will talk all about partitions, but be assured it actually means slices in *BSD speak. (partitions are generated within each slice using disklabel(8) which is a BSD specific thing. slices are generic for practically all OSes that can run on the IA32 architecture from DOS onwards.) OKay Matthew, I am still a little inclear here. do I need to chnage what BIOS thinks. this is the first interactive prompt that I receive when running the fdisk command: so I said no: snip --- # fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr -i da fdisk: cannot open disk /dev/da: No such file or directory typhoon# fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr -i da1 *** Working on device /dev/da1 *** parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are: cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl) Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1 parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are: cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl) Do you want to change our idea of what BIOS thinks ? [n] --- snip then do I say yes here? -- snip --- Media sector size is 512 Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1 Information from DOS bootblock is: The data for partition 1 is: sysid 165,(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD) start 63, size 143363997 (70001 Meg), flag 80 (active) beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1; end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63 Do you want to change it? [n] --- snip and no to the rest of the partitions/slices prompts? Thanks in advance, Noah the disk is a little bit of a different size with different partition sizes. woudl that Make a difference. what esle can I check here? The disk geometry won't make any difference to the boot block. fdisk(8) will read in the current partition table and give you the opportunity to modify things, but don't do that unless you really do intend to wipe the disk contents. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backup drive bootabel
To deal with a standard MBR, you have to use fdisk(8). Try: # fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr -i da1 This will walk you through the current settings interactively, letting you generate a slice table, change the active slice and rewrite the boot code. Of course, just to confuse you, fdisk(8) will talk all about partitions, but be assured it actually means slices in *BSD speak. (partitions are generated within each slice using disklabel(8) which is a BSD specific thing. slices are generic for practically all OSes that can run on the IA32 architecture from DOS onwards.) Matthew, okay I think I see what fdisk is wanting. I wanted to run it by you before i did anything: here is the prompts I filles out. some prompts do have anything appear there i just hit return for the default value. Do I need to change the active partition back to anything after running the fdisk Program? I still want to boot from /dev/da0 for the time being. I just want /dev/da1 drive ready for booting if /dev/da0 fails. Am I on the proper course here? --- snip --- # fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr -i da1 *** Working on device /dev/da1 *** parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are: cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl) Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1 parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are: cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl) Do you want to change our idea of what BIOS thinks ? [n] Media sector size is 512 Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1 Information from DOS bootblock is: The data for partition 1 is: sysid 165,(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD) start 63, size 143363997 (70001 Meg), flag 80 (active) beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1; end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63 Do you want to change it? [n] The data for partition 2 is: UNUSED Do you want to change it? [n] The data for partition 3 is: UNUSED Do you want to change it? [n] The data for partition 4 is: UNUSED Do you want to change it? [n] Partition 1 is marked active Do you want to change the active partition? [n] y Supply a decimal value for active partition [1] Are you happy with this choice [n] y Do you want to change the boot code? [n] y We haven't changed the partition table yet. This is your last chance. parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are: cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl) Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1 parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are: cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl) Information from DOS bootblock is: 1: sysid 165,(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD) start 63, size 143363997 (70001 Meg), flag 80 (active) beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1; end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63 2: UNUSED 3: UNUSED 4: UNUSED Should we write new partition table? [n] y --- snip --- Happy Holidays, - noah ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backup drive bootabel
On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 12:11:24PM -0800, Noah wrote: okay I think I see what fdisk is wanting. I wanted to run it by you before i did anything: here is the prompts I filles out. some prompts do have anything appear there i just hit return for the default value. Do I need to change the active partition back to anything after running the fdisk Program? I still want to boot from /dev/da0 for the time being. I just want /dev/da1 drive ready for booting if /dev/da0 fails. Am I on the proper course here? Looks OK to me -- you have got backups of anything important on that disk haven't you? This sort of operation has a high risk of trashing the drive contents if you don't get things quite right. Yes, you'll need to set the slice (da1s1) bootable if you want this as an alternate boot device. That shouldn't affect the default auto boot process performed by the boot loader, unless you interrupt the boot process and change the device selection there manually. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: backup drive bootabel
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 10:05:04 +, Matthew Seaman wrote On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 02:32:20PM -0800, Noah wrote: i) Make the 2nd disk an identical copy to the 1st one. In this case should the 1st drive go AWOL, you would have to open the case and either remove the first drive or modify the jumpering on the disks to swap their order on the bus. You will need to mark the FreeBSD slice bootable in the disk partition label by running: # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/mbr -s 1 da1 okay this is the command I was Looking for but I am arriving at an error: # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/mbr -s 1 da1 boot0cfg: /boot/mbr: unknown or incompatible boot code I think the partitions are about the same so I am not clear why this is happening. Hmmm... What FreeBSD version are you using? I had assumed 4.x, because that's what I'm using. It may well be the case that the sample mbr has been moved somewhere else in the filesystem. Checking the fdisk(8) and boot0cfg(8) man pages for clues doesn't confirm that though. Hi there, I am using FreeBSD 4.8 Stable # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/mbr -s 1 da1 boot0cfg: /boot/mbr: unknown or incompatible boot code # ls -l /boot/mbr -r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 512 Aug 24 14:26 /boot/mbr so I am not clear what the issue is here? the disk is a little bit of a different size with different partition sizes. woudl that Make a difference. what esle can I check here? - Noah The mbr should be a 512 byte file generated from the assembler sources in /usr/src/sys/boot/i386/mbr Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backup drive bootabel
On Wed, Nov 26, 2003 at 06:39:42AM -0800, Noah wrote: I am using FreeBSD 4.8 Stable # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/mbr -s 1 da1 boot0cfg: /boot/mbr: unknown or incompatible boot code # ls -l /boot/mbr -r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 512 Aug 24 14:26 /boot/mbr so I am not clear what the issue is here? Opps. Sorry. boot0cfg only operates on /boot/boot0 which is the FreeBSD special Master Boot Record: part of the boot0, boot1, boot2 chain. To deal with a standard MBR, you have to use fdisk(8). Try: # fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr -i da1 This will walk you through the current settings interactively, letting you generate a slice table, change the active slice and rewrite the boot code. Of course, just to confuse you, fdisk(8) will talk all about partitions, but be assured it actually means slices in *BSD speak. (partitions are generated within each slice using disklabel(8) which is a BSD specific thing. slices are generic for practically all OSes that can run on the IA32 architecture from DOS onwards.) the disk is a little bit of a different size with different partition sizes. woudl that Make a difference. what esle can I check here? The disk geometry won't make any difference to the boot block. fdisk(8) will read in the current partition table and give you the opportunity to modify things, but don't do that unless you really do intend to wipe the disk contents. Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: backup drive bootabel
On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 02:32:20PM -0800, Noah wrote: i) Make the 2nd disk an identical copy to the 1st one. In this case should the 1st drive go AWOL, you would have to open the case and either remove the first drive or modify the jumpering on the disks to swap their order on the bus. You will need to mark the FreeBSD slice bootable in the disk partition label by running: # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/mbr -s 1 da1 okay this is the command I was Looking for but I am arriving at an error: # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/mbr -s 1 da1 boot0cfg: /boot/mbr: unknown or incompatible boot code I think the partitions are about the same so I am not clear why this is happening. Hmmm... What FreeBSD version are you using? I had assumed 4.x, because that's what I'm using. It may well be the case that the sample mbr has been moved somewhere else in the filesystem. Checking the fdisk(8) and boot0cfg(8) man pages for clues doesn't confirm that though. The mbr should be a 512 byte file generated from the assembler sources in /usr/src/sys/boot/i386/mbr Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
backup drive bootabel
FreeBSD 4.8-stable I have about three different sources for making a drive bootable. well I have a machine with two drives and the second drive is an exact backup of the first. but I need to make the 2nd drive bootable as well since this drive will be plopped in if the first drive goes bad. any recommendations on how to do this? Please send me to a good web tutorial if need be. - Noah ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backup drive bootabel
Noah wrote: FreeBSD 4.8-stable I have about three different sources for making a drive bootable. well I have a machine with two drives and the second drive is an exact backup of the first. but I need to make the 2nd drive bootable as well since this drive will be plopped in if the first drive goes bad. any recommendations on how to do this? Please send me to a good web tutorial if need be. - Noah ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Seems like a good candidate for RAID 1 mirroring to me. See my reply to your backup drive scheme message. Jason ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backup drive bootabel
On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 11:00:38 -0500, Jason Stewart wrote Noah wrote: FreeBSD 4.8-stable I have about three different sources for making a drive bootable. well I have a machine with two drives and the second drive is an exact backup of the first. but I need to make the 2nd drive bootable as well since this drive will be plopped in if the first drive goes bad. any recommendations on how to do this? Thanks Jason, I will consider it. in the mean time can somebody explain to me how to make the 2nd drive bootable. I have seen many different ways to do this. can you direct me to the most optimal. I want to place a boot section that has no menu and no options. just load teh kernel and go. - Noah Please send me to a good web tutorial if need be. - Noah ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Seems like a good candidate for RAID 1 mirroring to me. See my reply to your backup drive scheme message. Jason ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: backup drive bootabel
On Wed, Nov 12, 2003 at 09:20:14AM -0800, Noah wrote: I will consider it. in the mean time can somebody explain to me how to make the 2nd drive bootable. I have seen many different ways to do this. can you direct me to the most optimal. I want to place a boot section that has no menu and no options. just load teh kernel and go. These are SCSI drives? So one disk is da0 and the other is da1. There's two ways to work this: i) Make the 2nd disk an identical copy to the 1st one. In this case should the 1st drive go AWOL, you would have to open the case and either remove the first drive or modify the jumpering on the disks to swap their order on the bus. You will need to mark the FreeBSD slice bootable in the disk partition label by running: # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/mbr -s 1 da1 So long as the slice tables and disklabels on da0 and da1 are pretty much the same, either disk should boot up smoothly. ii) Set up the system so that you can boot from either disk at will, without having to fiddle around with the hardware at all. This means that the settings on the two drives cannot be exactly the same: specifically the /etc/fstab file on each disk should reference the filesystems on the same disk: da0 on da0 or da1 on da1. Now, you can boot from either disk by interrupting the boot process by hitting a key while the spinning cursor is showing (| / - \ ...) [That's before the system loads the kernel and prints the message about the 10s countdown] -- it can be tricky to catch the system at this stage especially if booting from a fast device. At the boot: prompt, type: 0:da(0,a)/kernel to boot from da0, or 1:da(0,a)/kernel to boot from da1. If you take this route, you may find it more convenient to set up the machine for dual-boot with the slightly unusual configuration of two copies of the same OS. In this case you'll need to install the FreeBSD boot block, which will mean that you get a prompt at boot time where you can choose which disk to boot from, but unless you start hitting the function keys, after a short delay the system will carry on an boot up from the same disk as the previous boot: # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/boot0 da0 # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/boot0 da1 Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: backup drive bootabel
i) Make the 2nd disk an identical copy to the 1st one. In this case should the 1st drive go AWOL, you would have to open the case and either remove the first drive or modify the jumpering on the disks to swap their order on the bus. You will need to mark the FreeBSD slice bootable in the disk partition label by running: # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/mbr -s 1 da1 okay this is the command I was Looking for but I am arriving at an error: # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/mbr -s 1 da1 boot0cfg: /boot/mbr: unknown or incompatible boot code I think the partitions are about the same so I am not clear why this is happening. - Noah So long as the slice tables and disklabels on da0 and da1 are pretty much the same, either disk should boot up smoothly. ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
