Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Robert Nordier wrote: I assume that if I set the gemoetry in fdisk to be the BIOS figures, that I will lose the other half of the disk? Use 2096/255/63 in sysinstall. That worked! Here is what I did in the end: * set the BIOS disk type to Auto detect in LBA mode * booted 2.2.8 install diskette. Set the disk geometry in fdisk to 2096/255/63. * created three slices. The first two were both 3Gb, a bit smaller than I would have liked, but they both fit within the 1023 logical cylinder boundary. The third slice contained the remaining 10Gb+. About 5Mb of unused space was left at the end. * installed 2.2.8 into partition 1. * booted 2.2.8, and used fdisk to set the disk type to 6 * booted the 3.2 install disk. Checked the geometry settings were the same in fdisk, and set the second slice to be the active partition * installed 3.2 in the second slice * booted 3.2, and used its fdisk to set the partition type of the first slice back to 165 * booted a DOS diskette, and installed os-bs. The changing of the partition type was a necessary step; without this, the 3.2 install would still complain and refuse to make the root file system. Thanks for the help, Robert. Hopefully the summary above will be useful to others as well. g. -- Dr Graham WheelerE-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax:+27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security SpecialistsWWW:http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Robert Nordier wrote: I assume that if I set the gemoetry in fdisk to be the BIOS figures, that I will lose the other half of the disk? Use 2096/255/63 in sysinstall. That worked! Here is what I did in the end: * set the BIOS disk type to Auto detect in LBA mode * booted 2.2.8 install diskette. Set the disk geometry in fdisk to 2096/255/63. * created three slices. The first two were both 3Gb, a bit smaller than I would have liked, but they both fit within the 1023 logical cylinder boundary. The third slice contained the remaining 10Gb+. About 5Mb of unused space was left at the end. * installed 2.2.8 into partition 1. * booted 2.2.8, and used fdisk to set the disk type to 6 * booted the 3.2 install disk. Checked the geometry settings were the same in fdisk, and set the second slice to be the active partition * installed 3.2 in the second slice * booted 3.2, and used its fdisk to set the partition type of the first slice back to 165 * booted a DOS diskette, and installed os-bs. The changing of the partition type was a necessary step; without this, the 3.2 install would still complain and refuse to make the root file system. Thanks for the help, Robert. Hopefully the summary above will be useful to others as well. g. -- Dr Graham WheelerE-mail: g...@cequrux.com Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax:+27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security SpecialistsWWW:http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
At 8:01 PM +0200 8/3/99, Robert Nordier wrote: - If I select 3.2 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with two messages about "invalid partition", [...] It seems to want to boot 'da(0,a)/kernel', but if I type in 'da(0,e)/kernel', then it boots up fine. The problem here is a missing `a' partition. Seems like your first partition on that slice is `e'. There's a one-line patch to boot2 to get this working, but the standard version only autoboots from the `a' partition. I have my main machine setup to boot 3 different operating systems all on one harddisk. My disk is paritioned into 4 fdisk partitions, as follows: 1: Win98 (ugh, but I need to have it to play games :-) (bootable) 2: extended dos partition (non-bootable) 3: FreeBSD 3.2-stable (bootable) 4: FreeBSD 4.0 -current (bootable) Here is my file system layout when running 4.0: /dev/wd0s4a on / (local, soft-updates, writes: sync 16 async 14249) /dev/wd0s3a on /root32 (local, writes: sync 2 async 44) /dev/wd0s3e on /root32/usr (local, writes: sync 2 async 7099) /dev/wd0s4f on /usr (local, soft-updates, writes: sync 2 async 8148) /dev/wd0s4h on /shared (local, soft-updates, writes: sync 1963 async 263656) /dev/wd0s3f on /root32/var (local, writes: sync 2 async 40) /dev/wd0s4g on /var (local, soft-updates, writes: sync 4604 async 69441) (along with a wd0s4b swap partition, which is shared between both FreeBSD versions) When I first tried this, I couldn't boot the 4.0 version because the 4.0 root device was named wd0s4e by my initial 3.2 sysinstall. I had to run disklabel and change the partition name to wd0s4a. After doing that, both versions would boot no problem. I just hit F3 for 3.2-stable, or F4 for 4.0-current. All of my boot blocks were orignally written out with 3.2-stable, but I've since re-written them with 4.0-current boot blocks. -Mike -- Mike Pritchard [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Robert Nordier wrote: Because most modern BIOSes do CHS translation, the BIOS geometry is not always evident from the geometry reported by the drive, and FreeBSD may get this wrong, particularly if no existing partitions are defined. Since you are installing to a drive with no pre-existing non-FreeBSD partitions, I suspect sysinstall got the geometry wrong. Probably you should re-install and use the 'G' command in sysinstall's fdisk, after determining what geometry the BIOS is actually using. The best way to determine BIOS geometry in FreeBSD is to boot -v (but it should be from the old "boot:" prompt, not from loader(8) in 3.2R) and then check using dmesg(8) for "BIOS Geometries" information. Hmmm - perhaps it isn't possible then to do what I want (without losing most of the drive). The drive is 17Gb, consisting of 33416 cyls, 16 heads and 63 sectors. The BIOS reports 1023 cyls, 255 heads and 63 sectors - which is approximately 8Gb. This doesn't change if I change the BIOS mode between normal, large or LBA, nor if I make the disk type in the BIOS user defined and enter the real parameters (the BIOS is an Award BIOS v4.51PG, probably from about 1996). I assume that if I set the gemoetry in fdisk to be the BIOS figures, that I will lose the other half of the disk? -- Dr Graham WheelerE-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax:+27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security SpecialistsWWW:http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Because most modern BIOSes do CHS translation, the BIOS geometry is not always evident from the geometry reported by the drive, and FreeBSD may get this wrong, particularly if no existing partitions are defined. Since you are installing to a drive with no pre-existing non-FreeBSD partitions, I suspect sysinstall got the geometry wrong. Probably you should re-install and use the 'G' command in sysinstall's fdisk, after determining what geometry the BIOS is actually using. The best way to determine BIOS geometry in FreeBSD is to boot -v (but it should be from the old "boot:" prompt, not from loader(8) in 3.2R) and then check using dmesg(8) for "BIOS Geometries" information. Hmmm - perhaps it isn't possible then to do what I want (without losing most of the drive). The drive is 17Gb, consisting of 33416 cyls, 16 heads and 63 sectors. The BIOS reports 1023 cyls, 255 heads and 63 sectors - which is approximately 8Gb. This doesn't change if I change the BIOS mode between normal, large or LBA, nor if I make the disk type in the BIOS user defined and enter the real parameters (the BIOS is an Award BIOS v4.51PG, probably from about 1996). 1023/255/63 as the BIOS geometry is OK. It means that only about half the drive will be accessible through the BIOS CHS interface, but there is an "8.4GB" CHS limit anyway. The BIOS CHS interface is mainly needed only for booting. Some OSes support booting using a more recent BIOS LBA interface, which doesn't (effectively) have a size limit. Windows 9x and FreeBSD can do that, provided your BIOS LBA support isn't broken. Because not many OSes (or boot managers) support BIOS LBA, how you set up your partitions, and what OSes you choose to install in which partitions, needs some thought. Personally, for maximum flexibility, I'd use FreeBSD's boot0 (or some commercial boot manager that also supports LBA). And I'd install 2.2.8 in partition 4, but using the boot blocks from -current. I'd also suggest ending partition 2 about 32-64M below cylinder 1024. So it isn't completely straightforward, but you can make use of the whole disk. I assume that if I set the gemoetry in fdisk to be the BIOS figures, that I will lose the other half of the disk? Use 2096/255/63 in sysinstall. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
At 8:01 PM +0200 8/3/99, Robert Nordier wrote: - If I select 3.2 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with two messages about invalid partition, [...] It seems to want to boot 'da(0,a)/kernel', but if I type in 'da(0,e)/kernel', then it boots up fine. The problem here is a missing `a' partition. Seems like your first partition on that slice is `e'. There's a one-line patch to boot2 to get this working, but the standard version only autoboots from the `a' partition. I have my main machine setup to boot 3 different operating systems all on one harddisk. My disk is paritioned into 4 fdisk partitions, as follows: 1: Win98 (ugh, but I need to have it to play games :-) (bootable) 2: extended dos partition (non-bootable) 3: FreeBSD 3.2-stable (bootable) 4: FreeBSD 4.0 -current (bootable) Here is my file system layout when running 4.0: /dev/wd0s4a on / (local, soft-updates, writes: sync 16 async 14249) /dev/wd0s3a on /root32 (local, writes: sync 2 async 44) /dev/wd0s3e on /root32/usr (local, writes: sync 2 async 7099) /dev/wd0s4f on /usr (local, soft-updates, writes: sync 2 async 8148) /dev/wd0s4h on /shared (local, soft-updates, writes: sync 1963 async 263656) /dev/wd0s3f on /root32/var (local, writes: sync 2 async 40) /dev/wd0s4g on /var (local, soft-updates, writes: sync 4604 async 69441) (along with a wd0s4b swap partition, which is shared between both FreeBSD versions) When I first tried this, I couldn't boot the 4.0 version because the 4.0 root device was named wd0s4e by my initial 3.2 sysinstall. I had to run disklabel and change the partition name to wd0s4a. After doing that, both versions would boot no problem. I just hit F3 for 3.2-stable, or F4 for 4.0-current. All of my boot blocks were orignally written out with 3.2-stable, but I've since re-written them with 4.0-current boot blocks. -Mike -- Mike Pritchard m...@freebsd.org or m...@mpp.pro-ns.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Robert Nordier wrote: It's usually best to temporarily change fdisk partition types, so that sysinstall sees no existing FreeBSD slice on the drive. However, there may be other problems involved here as well. Hmmm. This sounds a good plan. Would the following then work (I'm using `partition' to refer to a fdisk partition, and `file system' to refer to a BSD partition): * I partition my drive into 4 equal partitions (rather than 2; this gives me more future flexibility) * I install 2.2.8 in the first partition. * I change the type to something other than FreeBSD * I install 3.2 into the second partition * I change the type of the first partition back to FreeBSD * I install os-bs or some other boot selector * And now, hopefully, I can simply boot either from the boot selector menu? -- Dr Graham WheelerE-mail: g...@cequrux.com Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax:+27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security SpecialistsWWW:http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Graham Wheeler wrote: Robert Nordier wrote: It's usually best to temporarily change fdisk partition types, so that sysinstall sees no existing FreeBSD slice on the drive. However, there may be other problems involved here as well. Hmmm. This sounds a good plan. Would the following then work (I'm using `partition' to refer to a fdisk partition, and `file system' to refer to a BSD partition): * I partition my drive into 4 equal partitions (rather than 2; this gives me more future flexibility) * I install 2.2.8 in the first partition. * I change the type to something other than FreeBSD * I install 3.2 into the second partition * I change the type of the first partition back to FreeBSD * I install os-bs or some other boot selector * And now, hopefully, I can simply boot either from the boot selector menu? I tried this, and the installation went through fine. But after installing 3.2, I get a `Missing operating system' when I try to boot the second partition (the first still has its type set to something other than FreeBSD, so it won't boot either). Robert, you seem quite knowledgeable about all this, and seem to have had considerable success. How do I get this right? I want to install 2.2.8 in one partition and 3.2 in another. If I don't change the fdisk partition type after installing 2.2.8, then sysinstall won't allow me to install the second OS (it complains when I try to make the root BSD partition that the boot loader can't handle it). If I do change the fdisk partition type first, the install is fine, but I can't boot afterwards, as described above. -- Dr Graham WheelerE-mail: g...@cequrux.com Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax:+27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security SpecialistsWWW:http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
It's usually best to temporarily change fdisk partition types, so that sysinstall sees no existing FreeBSD slice on the drive. However, there may be other problems involved here as well. Hmmm. This sounds a good plan. Would the following then work (I'm using `partition' to refer to a fdisk partition, and `file system' to refer to a BSD partition): * I partition my drive into 4 equal partitions (rather than 2; this gives me more future flexibility) * I install 2.2.8 in the first partition. * I change the type to something other than FreeBSD * I install 3.2 into the second partition * I change the type of the first partition back to FreeBSD * I install os-bs or some other boot selector * And now, hopefully, I can simply boot either from the boot selector menu? I tried this, and the installation went through fine. But after installing 3.2, I get a `Missing operating system' when I try to boot the second partition (the first still has its type set to something other than FreeBSD, so it won't boot either). Robert, you seem quite knowledgeable about all this, and seem to have had considerable success. How do I get this right? I want to install 2.2.8 in one partition and 3.2 in another. If I don't change the fdisk partition type after installing 2.2.8, then sysinstall won't allow me to install the second OS (it complains when I try to make the root BSD partition that the boot loader can't handle it). If I do change the fdisk partition type first, the install is fine, but I can't boot afterwards, as described above. Missing operating system indicates that the first sector of the OS bootstrap (boot1 in the FreeBSD case) isn't flagged bootable: that is, it doesn't have the bytes 0x55 and 0xaa right at the end. Almost invariably, the cause of this is a mismatch between the disk geometry the BIOS is using, and what FreeBSD thought the geometry was during the install. (So the wrong sector is read by the MBR code.) The first partition is less sensitive to geometry mismatches than the others, since it has a starting CHS value of 0,1,1. That relies only on sectors per track and not number of heads. Because most modern BIOSes do CHS translation, the BIOS geometry is not always evident from the geometry reported by the drive, and FreeBSD may get this wrong, particularly if no existing partitions are defined. Since you are installing to a drive with no pre-existing non-FreeBSD partitions, I suspect sysinstall got the geometry wrong. Probably you should re-install and use the 'G' command in sysinstall's fdisk, after determining what geometry the BIOS is actually using. The best way to determine BIOS geometry in FreeBSD is to boot -v (but it should be from the old boot: prompt, not from loader(8) in 3.2R) and then check using dmesg(8) for BIOS Geometries information. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Robert Nordier wrote: Because most modern BIOSes do CHS translation, the BIOS geometry is not always evident from the geometry reported by the drive, and FreeBSD may get this wrong, particularly if no existing partitions are defined. Since you are installing to a drive with no pre-existing non-FreeBSD partitions, I suspect sysinstall got the geometry wrong. Probably you should re-install and use the 'G' command in sysinstall's fdisk, after determining what geometry the BIOS is actually using. The best way to determine BIOS geometry in FreeBSD is to boot -v (but it should be from the old boot: prompt, not from loader(8) in 3.2R) and then check using dmesg(8) for BIOS Geometries information. Hmmm - perhaps it isn't possible then to do what I want (without losing most of the drive). The drive is 17Gb, consisting of 33416 cyls, 16 heads and 63 sectors. The BIOS reports 1023 cyls, 255 heads and 63 sectors - which is approximately 8Gb. This doesn't change if I change the BIOS mode between normal, large or LBA, nor if I make the disk type in the BIOS user defined and enter the real parameters (the BIOS is an Award BIOS v4.51PG, probably from about 1996). I assume that if I set the gemoetry in fdisk to be the BIOS figures, that I will lose the other half of the disk? -- Dr Graham WheelerE-mail: g...@cequrux.com Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax:+27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security SpecialistsWWW:http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Because most modern BIOSes do CHS translation, the BIOS geometry is not always evident from the geometry reported by the drive, and FreeBSD may get this wrong, particularly if no existing partitions are defined. Since you are installing to a drive with no pre-existing non-FreeBSD partitions, I suspect sysinstall got the geometry wrong. Probably you should re-install and use the 'G' command in sysinstall's fdisk, after determining what geometry the BIOS is actually using. The best way to determine BIOS geometry in FreeBSD is to boot -v (but it should be from the old boot: prompt, not from loader(8) in 3.2R) and then check using dmesg(8) for BIOS Geometries information. Hmmm - perhaps it isn't possible then to do what I want (without losing most of the drive). The drive is 17Gb, consisting of 33416 cyls, 16 heads and 63 sectors. The BIOS reports 1023 cyls, 255 heads and 63 sectors - which is approximately 8Gb. This doesn't change if I change the BIOS mode between normal, large or LBA, nor if I make the disk type in the BIOS user defined and enter the real parameters (the BIOS is an Award BIOS v4.51PG, probably from about 1996). 1023/255/63 as the BIOS geometry is OK. It means that only about half the drive will be accessible through the BIOS CHS interface, but there is an 8.4GB CHS limit anyway. The BIOS CHS interface is mainly needed only for booting. Some OSes support booting using a more recent BIOS LBA interface, which doesn't (effectively) have a size limit. Windows 9x and FreeBSD can do that, provided your BIOS LBA support isn't broken. Because not many OSes (or boot managers) support BIOS LBA, how you set up your partitions, and what OSes you choose to install in which partitions, needs some thought. Personally, for maximum flexibility, I'd use FreeBSD's boot0 (or some commercial boot manager that also supports LBA). And I'd install 2.2.8 in partition 4, but using the boot blocks from -current. I'd also suggest ending partition 2 about 32-64M below cylinder 1024. So it isn't completely straightforward, but you can make use of the whole disk. I assume that if I set the gemoetry in fdisk to be the BIOS figures, that I will lose the other half of the disk? Use 2096/255/63 in sysinstall. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
I am trying to install both 2.2.8 and 3.2 on a single 17Gb HDD, but am not having much luck. I have tried several approaches, in particular creating four partitions, the first two for the respective root slices, the third for swap, and the fourth for the remaining slices. If I create the first two partitions as small as 50Mb, sysinstall still complains that it can't make a root slice in the second partition as the boot loader can't deal with that location. If I create the /usr and /var slices for the second OS and then say `Use defaults for all' it creates a 32MB root slice in the second partition, so that seems to get around the problem, but I can't boot this after the install is done. Not too sure what exactly you're trying to do here -but how about creating a separate *slice* for the two versions, then go install one version into one slice, carve that slice up into partitions (one for root /usr swap etc.) reboot, then go install the other version into the other slice, carve it up into partitions etc. This way you should have something similar to: da0s1 = FreeBSD 2.2.8, da0s2 = FreeBSD 3.2 AFAIK, wd0a will refer to wd0s1a etc. Hope this helps, but why do you want 2.2.8 ? 3.2 is much better :) - Cillian To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
This works, but has the restriction that I have to enter a command line at the boot prompt to boot one of the two. I would much prefer partitions, as I can use a boot selector instead, and also change the default as appropriate. If you do have the installations in two seperate slices on the one disk, you should be able to use a boot selector to boot which ever slice you want. I don't know if this will work with booteasy the boot manager that comes with FreeBSD by default, but there is a nice boot manager called OS Select (tools/os-bs.exe in the FreeBSD distribution I think).. (the setup program is an MSDOS exe) It allows you to create a menu of OS's to boot from by selecting the relevant slices from the list it shows. It also allows you to set a default slice to boot aswell as a timeout counter. Whether it will work or not in your situation remains to be seen.. :) Regards, - Cillian To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Cillian Sharkey wrote: I am trying to install both 2.2.8 and 3.2 on a single 17Gb HDD, but am not having much luck. I have tried several approaches, in particular creating four partitions, the first two for the respective root slices, the third for swap, and the fourth for the remaining slices. If I create the first two partitions as small as 50Mb, sysinstall still complains that it can't make a root slice in the second partition as the boot loader can't deal with that location. If I create the /usr and /var slices for the second OS and then say `Use defaults for all' it creates a 32MB root slice in the second partition, so that seems to get around the problem, but I can't boot this after the install is done. Not too sure what exactly you're trying to do here -but how about creating a separate *slice* for the two versions, then go install one version into one slice, carve that slice up into partitions (one for root /usr swap etc.) reboot, then go install the other version into the other slice, carve it up into partitions etc. This works, but has the restriction that I have to enter a command line at the boot prompt to boot one of the two. I would much prefer partitions, as I can use a boot selector instead, and also change the default as appropriate. Hope this helps, but why do you want 2.2.8 ? 3.2 is much better :) I have system software (including kernel hacks) written on 2.2.7 that needs to be ported to 2.2.8 and 3.2, for different reasons. -- Dr Graham WheelerE-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax:+27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security SpecialistsWWW:http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
If you do have the installations in two seperate slices on the one disk, you should be able to use a boot selector to boot which ever slice you want. Boot selector programs like os-bs work with partitions, not disk slices. That's why I wanted separate partitions. At the moment I have os-bs installed but it will only get me as far as a BSD boot. I then have to quickly hit a key and enter: 0:wd(0,c)/kernel to boot 2.2.8 (3.2 will boot by default). Ah yes, I see the problem now. Even if you have two seperate slices say wd0s1 and wd0s2 and boot into your selected one via os-bs, the boot prompt on either will always be 0:wd(0,a)/kernel ..and wd0a always points to the first BSD slice found on the disk. (in this case wd0s1 which is either 2.2.8 or 3.2 depending on where you installed them). I think the FreeBSD boot loader might need the option of specifying which *slice* to boot from rather than just which disk (0,1,2 etc.) and partition (a,b,c,d etc.) for the moment I think you'll just have to type in the line above every time you need to boot into 2.2.8 (or get another HD but that was the problem we've been trying to solve :) Anybody else out there have suggestions ? - Cillian To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
This works, but has the restriction that I have to enter a command line at the boot prompt to boot one of the two. I would much prefer partitions, as I can use a boot selector instead, and also change the default as appropriate. If you do have the installations in two seperate slices on the one disk, you should be able to use a boot selector to boot which ever slice you want. Just to elaborate on this: The new boot code is specifically designed to handle the separate slices case. Where multiple FreeBSD slices are found, it will prefer the one marked active; the old boot code always chose the first slice. For this to work optimally, it's best to replace your 2.2 boot blocks with ones from 3.2 (or otherwise ensure the 2.2 system occupies the first FreeBSD slice). You also need to use a boot manager which sets the "active" flag of the selected slice. I don't know if this will work with booteasy the boot manager that comes with FreeBSD by default, but there is a nice boot manager called OS Select (tools/os-bs.exe in the FreeBSD distribution I think). Both booteasy and boot0 (distributed in place of booteasy from 3.1R) work as well. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
By now the floppies for PowerBoot had come, so I tried installing that. I could now boot the HD, and PowerBoot can see the two partitions with freebsd installed (it even recognizes them as freebsd). Right now, my situation is that: - If I select WinNT at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up fine. Everything looks about as I'd expect. - If I select 2.2.8 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with one error message about "no /boot/loader", but then it comes right up in the 2.2.8 system. So this works fine, although it looks odd. You're using the new boot blocks for 2.2.8, and these always try to pass control to loader(8). To get rid of the message, create a /boot.config file with the line /kernel in it. - If I select 3.2 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with two messages about "invalid partition", one about "no boot loader", and then it can't automatically boot up anything. The interesting thing is that I'm in the 2.2.8 bootloader at this point, not the 3.2 one. It seems to want to boot 'da(0,a)/kernel', but if I type in 'da(0,e)/kernel', then it boots up fine. The problem here is a missing `a' partition. Seems like your first partition on that slice is `e'. There's a one-line patch to boot2 to get this working, but the standard version only autoboots from the `a' partition. My last partition is meant for installing OpenBSD, but I wasn't ready to do that yet. Later I was talking with one of the other guys here, and I went to show him what I did by trying to do another freebsd install into that 4th partition. Much to my surprise, it won't *let* me install into that partition. It's usually best to temporarily change fdisk partition types, so that sysinstall sees no existing FreeBSD slice on the drive. However, there may be other problems involved here as well. (note that I wanted to try PowerBoot because I also have a second hard disk, and I want to install Win98 on that one, along with BeOS and maybe some other OS's. It seemed to me that multi-disk situations could use something more than booteasy). Actually booteasy can handle two drives, and boot0 (which replaced booteasy in 3.1R) can handle more than that. However, the OSes on the higher drives must be capable of booting from the non-default drive. Most can do that -- even UnixWare -- though not Windows, which ignores the drive number passed in to it. So, for Windows, something that swaps drive letters is more suitable. So, my guess is that my primary problem is that I have only a vague idea of what I'm doing... Where is a good point to start looking for a better idea? I tried searching the web site for "multi-boot", but that didn't turn up much. I have a number of questions from doing this: 1. why does the install turn my HD unbootable? (invalid partition table). I didn't ask it to re-fdisk anything, and I didn't ask for it to change my boot loader. There are a number of possibilities, but one would have to look at a copy of the broken MBR to be sure. (The most usual reason for an "invalid partition table" message is multiple partitions flagged as active, or partitions that use the new-style active flag that is supported from Win95. This can be sorted out by booting from floppy or CD-ROM and using fdisk.) 2. I have the BIOS option on so I can boot off larger hard disks, and indeed it seems I can boot to the first three partitions. Why can't I get to that final one? You need to enable something more than the BIOS option. For instance, for FreeBSD, you need to enable LBA support in the boot blocks by means of a build option, and use boot0cfg(8) to turn on "packet" support in boot0. 3. Can I get it so that booting off the third partition will smoothly boot into 3.2-stable? Either patch boot2 or change to using an `a' partition. 4. given the rapidly-expanding size of HD's, would it be useful to support installs into DOS-style extended partitions? Or are they a problem which we're better off to avoid? I think support for extended partitions is inevitable (it's now the RedHat default), whether it really is a good idea or not. Technically, it violates the IBM specification that deals with fdisk partitions, though I'm not sure that matters very much. It will break some older OS/2 device drivers, for instance, though. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
I should mention that what I have on the disk right now (with
the three systems) isn't too critical, so it is alright if I
have to start over and reinstall everything. On the other
hand, reinstalling does get a little tiring after awhile, so
I want to have a better idea of what I'm doing before I take
another stab at this, to minimize the number of reinstalls
that I wind up doing.
I should also mention that while I do have a second 4-gig scsi
disk to use, it isn't actually installed yet.
Also, I did intend to have a freebsd 4-current system as part
of this multi-boot mix. I don't think I mentioned that last
time. Perhaps I should create one fdisk-style partition per
hard disk, and put all freebsd-related slices (for all the
different freebsd installs) into that one partition? Would
that make things go smoother? (particularly if I put all the
boot-related slices at the start of that fdisk-style partition)
Using BSD terminology, "slice" == fdisk partition, and partitions
('a', 'e', etc.) are just "partitions". Though, IIRC, SVR5 uses
the terms the other way round.
I'd suggest you install one system per fdisk partition. I had a
system set up with 2.0R, 2.1R, 2.2R and 3-current (as was) in
separate slices, when testing the new boot code.
Some people do prefer the multiple systems per slice approach,
though, which is all that used to be supported. So either can
be made to work.
--
Robert Nordier
To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
I am trying to install both 2.2.8 and 3.2 on a single 17Gb HDD, but am not having much luck. I have tried several approaches, in particular creating four partitions, the first two for the respective root slices, the third for swap, and the fourth for the remaining slices. If I create the first two partitions as small as 50Mb, sysinstall still complains that it can't make a root slice in the second partition as the boot loader can't deal with that location. If I create the /usr and /var slices for the second OS and then say `Use defaults for all' it creates a 32MB root slice in the second partition, so that seems to get around the problem, but I can't boot this after the install is done. Not too sure what exactly you're trying to do here -but how about creating a separate *slice* for the two versions, then go install one version into one slice, carve that slice up into partitions (one for root /usr swap etc.) reboot, then go install the other version into the other slice, carve it up into partitions etc. This way you should have something similar to: da0s1 = FreeBSD 2.2.8, da0s2 = FreeBSD 3.2 AFAIK, wd0a will refer to wd0s1a etc. Hope this helps, but why do you want 2.2.8 ? 3.2 is much better :) - Cillian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Cillian Sharkey wrote: I am trying to install both 2.2.8 and 3.2 on a single 17Gb HDD, but am not having much luck. I have tried several approaches, in particular creating four partitions, the first two for the respective root slices, the third for swap, and the fourth for the remaining slices. If I create the first two partitions as small as 50Mb, sysinstall still complains that it can't make a root slice in the second partition as the boot loader can't deal with that location. If I create the /usr and /var slices for the second OS and then say `Use defaults for all' it creates a 32MB root slice in the second partition, so that seems to get around the problem, but I can't boot this after the install is done. Not too sure what exactly you're trying to do here -but how about creating a separate *slice* for the two versions, then go install one version into one slice, carve that slice up into partitions (one for root /usr swap etc.) reboot, then go install the other version into the other slice, carve it up into partitions etc. This works, but has the restriction that I have to enter a command line at the boot prompt to boot one of the two. I would much prefer partitions, as I can use a boot selector instead, and also change the default as appropriate. Hope this helps, but why do you want 2.2.8 ? 3.2 is much better :) I have system software (including kernel hacks) written on 2.2.7 that needs to be ported to 2.2.8 and 3.2, for different reasons. -- Dr Graham WheelerE-mail: g...@cequrux.com Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax:+27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security SpecialistsWWW:http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
This works, but has the restriction that I have to enter a command line at the boot prompt to boot one of the two. I would much prefer partitions, as I can use a boot selector instead, and also change the default as appropriate. If you do have the installations in two seperate slices on the one disk, you should be able to use a boot selector to boot which ever slice you want. I don't know if this will work with booteasy the boot manager that comes with FreeBSD by default, but there is a nice boot manager called OS Select (tools/os-bs.exe in the FreeBSD distribution I think).. (the setup program is an MSDOS exe) It allows you to create a menu of OS's to boot from by selecting the relevant slices from the list it shows. It also allows you to set a default slice to boot aswell as a timeout counter. Whether it will work or not in your situation remains to be seen.. :) Regards, - Cillian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
Cillian Sharkey wrote: This works, but has the restriction that I have to enter a command line at the boot prompt to boot one of the two. I would much prefer partitions, as I can use a boot selector instead, and also change the default as appropriate. If you do have the installations in two seperate slices on the one disk, you should be able to use a boot selector to boot which ever slice you want. Boot selector programs like os-bs work with partitions, not disk slices. That's why I wanted separate partitions. At the moment I have os-bs installed but it will only get me as far as a BSD boot. I then have to quickly hit a key and enter: 0:wd(0,c)/kernel to boot 2.2.8 (3.2 will boot by default). I have only a couple of seconds to hit a key to get this right, and no way (that I know of) to change the default. So it works, but not like I'd like it to. -- Dr Graham WheelerE-mail: g...@cequrux.com Cequrux Technologies Phone: +27(21)423-6065/6/7 Firewalls/Virtual Private Networks Fax:+27(21)24-3656 Data/Network Security SpecialistsWWW:http://www.cequrux.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
If you do have the installations in two seperate slices on the one disk, you should be able to use a boot selector to boot which ever slice you want. Boot selector programs like os-bs work with partitions, not disk slices. That's why I wanted separate partitions. At the moment I have os-bs installed but it will only get me as far as a BSD boot. I then have to quickly hit a key and enter: 0:wd(0,c)/kernel to boot 2.2.8 (3.2 will boot by default). Ah yes, I see the problem now. Even if you have two seperate slices say wd0s1 and wd0s2 and boot into your selected one via os-bs, the boot prompt on either will always be 0:wd(0,a)/kernel ..and wd0a always points to the first BSD slice found on the disk. (in this case wd0s1 which is either 2.2.8 or 3.2 depending on where you installed them). I think the FreeBSD boot loader might need the option of specifying which *slice* to boot from rather than just which disk (0,1,2 etc.) and partition (a,b,c,d etc.) for the moment I think you'll just have to type in the line above every time you need to boot into 2.2.8 (or get another HD but that was the problem we've been trying to solve :) Anybody else out there have suggestions ? - Cillian To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
This works, but has the restriction that I have to enter a command line at the boot prompt to boot one of the two. I would much prefer partitions, as I can use a boot selector instead, and also change the default as appropriate. If you do have the installations in two seperate slices on the one disk, you should be able to use a boot selector to boot which ever slice you want. Just to elaborate on this: The new boot code is specifically designed to handle the separate slices case. Where multiple FreeBSD slices are found, it will prefer the one marked active; the old boot code always chose the first slice. For this to work optimally, it's best to replace your 2.2 boot blocks with ones from 3.2 (or otherwise ensure the 2.2 system occupies the first FreeBSD slice). You also need to use a boot manager which sets the active flag of the selected slice. I don't know if this will work with booteasy the boot manager that comes with FreeBSD by default, but there is a nice boot manager called OS Select (tools/os-bs.exe in the FreeBSD distribution I think). Both booteasy and boot0 (distributed in place of booteasy from 3.1R) work as well. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
At 12:55 PM +0200 8/3/99, Graham Wheeler wrote: Hi all I am trying to install both 2.2.8 and 3.2 on a single 17Gb HDD, but am not having much luck. I am also interested in doing things like this, and my initial attempts didn't work quite the way I had hoped. Earlier I had a dual-boot setup with WinNT and FreeBSD 2.2.5, using the booteasy loader. I managed to get that going easily enough, even though I didn't have any clue about what I was doing, so after I replaced the HD (for unrelated reasons) I thought I'd get more ambitious. So, armed with a brand new hard 4-gig SCSI disk, I installed WinNT, and had it create several partitions which I expected to use for other OS's. This install went fine. I then went to install FreeBSD 2.2.8, only to realize that all the partitions WinNT created were extended partitions in one real partition. So, I used the fdisk-part of the install to blow away those partitions and create three new partitions. I installed 2.2.8 in one of those, but told it that I wanted nothing done for a boot loader (because I planned to install PowerBoot, but I didn't have those disks yet). If I booted off the CD-ROM, I could then switch to this 2.2.8 install and it worked fine. The thing is, I couldn't boot up off the hard disk anymore. Apparently something in the freebsd install resulted in an invalid partition table. I assumed this was because I had fdisk-ed the second partition that winNT had created into three partitions, so I went and reinstalled WinNT in the first partition. At that point I could boot either system (using the CD when I wanted to boot off the freebsd system). I then installed Freebsd 3.2-stable in the third partition. Since I didn't need to fdisk anything, and I said I didn't want to install any boot-loader, I figured this would be safe. Again, I ended up with an unbootable HD. I could boot either freebsd system by first booting off a CD. By now the floppies for PowerBoot had come, so I tried installing that. I could now boot the HD, and PowerBoot can see the two partitions with freebsd installed (it even recognizes them as freebsd). Right now, my situation is that: - If I select WinNT at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up fine. Everything looks about as I'd expect. - If I select 2.2.8 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with one error message about no /boot/loader, but then it comes right up in the 2.2.8 system. So this works fine, although it looks odd. - If I select 3.2 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with two messages about invalid partition, one about no boot loader, and then it can't automatically boot up anything. The interesting thing is that I'm in the 2.2.8 bootloader at this point, not the 3.2 one. It seems to want to boot 'da(0,a)/kernel', but if I type in 'da(0,e)/kernel', then it boots up fine. My last partition is meant for installing OpenBSD, but I wasn't ready to do that yet. Later I was talking with one of the other guys here, and I went to show him what I did by trying to do another freebsd install into that 4th partition. Much to my surprise, it won't *let* me install into that partition. (note that I wanted to try PowerBoot because I also have a second hard disk, and I want to install Win98 on that one, along with BeOS and maybe some other OS's. It seemed to me that multi-disk situations could use something more than booteasy). So, my guess is that my primary problem is that I have only a vague idea of what I'm doing... Where is a good point to start looking for a better idea? I tried searching the web site for multi-boot, but that didn't turn up much. I have a number of questions from doing this: 1. why does the install turn my HD unbootable? (invalid partition table). I didn't ask it to re-fdisk anything, and I didn't ask for it to change my boot loader. 2. I have the BIOS option on so I can boot off larger hard disks, and indeed it seems I can boot to the first three partitions. Why can't I get to that final one? 3. Can I get it so that booting off the third partition will smoothly boot into 3.2-stable? 4. given the rapidly-expanding size of HD's, would it be useful to support installs into DOS-style extended partitions? Or are they a problem which we're better off to avoid? --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = g...@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or dro...@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
At 1:24 PM -0400 8/3/99, i (Garance A Drosihn) wrote: So, my guess is that my primary problem is that I have only a vague idea of what I'm doing... Where is a good point to start looking for a better idea? I tried searching the web site for multi-boot, but that didn't turn up much. I have a number of questions from doing this: 1. why does the install turn my HD unbootable? (invalid partition table). I didn't ask it to re-fdisk anything, and I didn't ask for it to change my boot loader. 2. I have the BIOS option on so I can boot off larger hard disks, and indeed it seems I can boot to the first three partitions. Why can't I get to that final partition? 3. Can I get it so that booting off the third partition will smoothly boot into 3.2-stable? I should mention that what I have on the disk right now (with the three systems) isn't too critical, so it is alright if I have to start over and reinstall everything. On the other hand, reinstalling does get a little tiring after awhile, so I want to have a better idea of what I'm doing before I take another stab at this, to minimize the number of reinstalls that I wind up doing. I should also mention that while I do have a second 4-gig scsi disk to use, it isn't actually installed yet. Also, I did intend to have a freebsd 4-current system as part of this multi-boot mix. I don't think I mentioned that last time. Perhaps I should create one fdisk-style partition per hard disk, and put all freebsd-related slices (for all the different freebsd installs) into that one partition? Would that make things go smoother? (particularly if I put all the boot-related slices at the start of that fdisk-style partition) --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = g...@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or dro...@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
By now the floppies for PowerBoot had come, so I tried installing that. I could now boot the HD, and PowerBoot can see the two partitions with freebsd installed (it even recognizes them as freebsd). Right now, my situation is that: - If I select WinNT at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up fine. Everything looks about as I'd expect. - If I select 2.2.8 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with one error message about no /boot/loader, but then it comes right up in the 2.2.8 system. So this works fine, although it looks odd. You're using the new boot blocks for 2.2.8, and these always try to pass control to loader(8). To get rid of the message, create a /boot.config file with the line /kernel in it. - If I select 3.2 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with two messages about invalid partition, one about no boot loader, and then it can't automatically boot up anything. The interesting thing is that I'm in the 2.2.8 bootloader at this point, not the 3.2 one. It seems to want to boot 'da(0,a)/kernel', but if I type in 'da(0,e)/kernel', then it boots up fine. The problem here is a missing `a' partition. Seems like your first partition on that slice is `e'. There's a one-line patch to boot2 to get this working, but the standard version only autoboots from the `a' partition. My last partition is meant for installing OpenBSD, but I wasn't ready to do that yet. Later I was talking with one of the other guys here, and I went to show him what I did by trying to do another freebsd install into that 4th partition. Much to my surprise, it won't *let* me install into that partition. It's usually best to temporarily change fdisk partition types, so that sysinstall sees no existing FreeBSD slice on the drive. However, there may be other problems involved here as well. (note that I wanted to try PowerBoot because I also have a second hard disk, and I want to install Win98 on that one, along with BeOS and maybe some other OS's. It seemed to me that multi-disk situations could use something more than booteasy). Actually booteasy can handle two drives, and boot0 (which replaced booteasy in 3.1R) can handle more than that. However, the OSes on the higher drives must be capable of booting from the non-default drive. Most can do that -- even UnixWare -- though not Windows, which ignores the drive number passed in to it. So, for Windows, something that swaps drive letters is more suitable. So, my guess is that my primary problem is that I have only a vague idea of what I'm doing... Where is a good point to start looking for a better idea? I tried searching the web site for multi-boot, but that didn't turn up much. I have a number of questions from doing this: 1. why does the install turn my HD unbootable? (invalid partition table). I didn't ask it to re-fdisk anything, and I didn't ask for it to change my boot loader. There are a number of possibilities, but one would have to look at a copy of the broken MBR to be sure. (The most usual reason for an invalid partition table message is multiple partitions flagged as active, or partitions that use the new-style active flag that is supported from Win95. This can be sorted out by booting from floppy or CD-ROM and using fdisk.) 2. I have the BIOS option on so I can boot off larger hard disks, and indeed it seems I can boot to the first three partitions. Why can't I get to that final one? You need to enable something more than the BIOS option. For instance, for FreeBSD, you need to enable LBA support in the boot blocks by means of a build option, and use boot0cfg(8) to turn on packet support in boot0. 3. Can I get it so that booting off the third partition will smoothly boot into 3.2-stable? Either patch boot2 or change to using an `a' partition. 4. given the rapidly-expanding size of HD's, would it be useful to support installs into DOS-style extended partitions? Or are they a problem which we're better off to avoid? I think support for extended partitions is inevitable (it's now the RedHat default), whether it really is a good idea or not. Technically, it violates the IBM specification that deals with fdisk partitions, though I'm not sure that matters very much. It will break some older OS/2 device drivers, for instance, though. -- Robert Nordier To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
I should mention that what I have on the disk right now (with
the three systems) isn't too critical, so it is alright if I
have to start over and reinstall everything. On the other
hand, reinstalling does get a little tiring after awhile, so
I want to have a better idea of what I'm doing before I take
another stab at this, to minimize the number of reinstalls
that I wind up doing.
I should also mention that while I do have a second 4-gig scsi
disk to use, it isn't actually installed yet.
Also, I did intend to have a freebsd 4-current system as part
of this multi-boot mix. I don't think I mentioned that last
time. Perhaps I should create one fdisk-style partition per
hard disk, and put all freebsd-related slices (for all the
different freebsd installs) into that one partition? Would
that make things go smoother? (particularly if I put all the
boot-related slices at the start of that fdisk-style partition)
Using BSD terminology, slice == fdisk partition, and partitions
('a', 'e', etc.) are just partitions. Though, IIRC, SVR5 uses
the terms the other way round.
I'd suggest you install one system per fdisk partition. I had a
system set up with 2.0R, 2.1R, 2.2R and 3-current (as was) in
separate slices, when testing the new boot code.
Some people do prefer the multiple systems per slice approach,
though, which is all that used to be supported. So either can
be made to work.
--
Robert Nordier
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org
with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
Re: Multiple versions of FreeBSD on one HDD
At 8:01 PM +0200 8/3/99, Robert Nordier wrote: Garance wrote: - If I select 2.2.8 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with one error message about no /boot/loader, but then it comes right up in the 2.2.8 system. So this works fine, although it looks odd. You're using the new boot blocks for 2.2.8, and these always try to pass control to loader(8). To get rid of the message, create a /boot.config file with the line /kernel in it. Yes, that did get rid of the minor error message. Thanks. - If I select 3.2 at the PowerBoot menu, it comes up with two messages about invalid partition, [...] It seems to want to boot 'da(0,a)/kernel', but if I type in 'da(0,e)/kernel', then it boots up fine. The problem here is a missing `a' partition. Seems like your first partition on that slice is `e'. There's a one-line patch to boot2 to get this working, but the standard version only autoboots from the `a' partition. I did my fdisk-ing for both 2.2.8 and 3.2 systems while doing the installation of 2.2.8 (I wanted to use the same partition for swap on both, and that freebsd-partition was going to be in the same fdisk-slice as the 3.2 install would be). Might that be why I don't have an a partition in the third slice? (the slice meant for freebsd-3.2). [in case that doesn't make sense, here's the layout I ended up with, as seen from the 3.2 system: Filesystem 1K-blocks UsedAvail Capacity Mounted on /dev/da0s3e 39647212801519658%/ /dev/da0s3g248047 108480 11972448%/Users /dev/da0s3h985287 465169 44129651%/usr /dev/da0s3f 59519 190552853 3%/var procfs 440 100%/proc /dev/da0s2a 38991198021607055%/228Root /dev/da0s2f390942 351090 857798%/228Usr /dev/da0s2e 59471 95053764 2%/228Var with /dev/da0s3b being my swap partition when booting either system. swapinfo from 3.2 shows: Device 1K-blocks UsedAvail Capacity Type /dev/da0s3b2560000 255872 0%Interleaved ] I'd rather not depend on patching boot2. Given that I wouldn't mind (too much) to do some reinstalls, is there some way I can end up with the first freebsd-partition in the third fdisk-slice to be named /dev/da0s3a instead of /dev/da0s3e? For instance, is this where your recommendation of: It's usually best to temporarily change fdisk partition types, so that sysinstall sees no existing FreeBSD slice on the drive. However, there may be other problems involved here as well. would be help me out? (how does that first partition on the third slice end up as e anyway? I didn't explicitly ask for that...) I have a number of questions from doing this: 1. why does the install turn my HD unbootable? (invalid partition table). I didn't ask it to re-fdisk anything, and I didn't ask for it to change my boot loader. There are a number of possibilities, but one would have to look at a copy of the broken MBR to be sure. (The most usual reason for an invalid partition table message is multiple partitions flagged as active, or partitions that use the new-style active flag that is supported from Win95. This can be sorted out by booting from floppy or CD-ROM and using fdisk.) I'll be out of town for a few days here, but maybe I'll try some re-installs when I get back, and see if I can figure out some of these things. Thanks. --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = g...@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or dro...@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majord...@freebsd.org with unsubscribe freebsd-hackers in the body of the message
