From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 22 12:17:27 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D74201065672 for ; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:17:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsd1@a1poweruser.com) Received: from mail-03.name-services.com (mail-03.name-services.com [69.64.155.195]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C0DAE8FC1A for ; Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:17:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [10.0.10.3] ([202.69.174.13]) by mail-03.name-services.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:17:27 -0800 Message-ID: <4B59973B.8040203@a1poweruser.com> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:16:59 +0800 From: Fbsd1 User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 (Windows/20080914) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: John References: <20100121014759.B3377@starfire.mn.org> <4B58127E.9000106@a1poweruser.com> <20100121065206.B8574@starfire.mn.org> <4B5863D6.2000800@a1poweruser.com> <20100121180336.B17543@starfire.mn.org> In-Reply-To: <20100121180336.B17543@starfire.mn.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 22 Jan 2010 12:17:27.0308 (UTC) FILETIME=[DC8E24C0:01CA9B5C] X-Sender: fbsd1@a1poweruser.com Cc: freebsd-questions Subject: Re: "Invalid partition table" after installation X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:17:28 -0000 John wrote: > On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 10:25:26PM +0800, Fbsd1 wrote: >> John wrote: >>> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 04:38:22PM +0800, Fbsd1 wrote: >>>> John wrote: >>>>> I've tried the "modern BIOS" geometry and the "255 head" geometry. >>>>> I've ensured that the first slice (boot slice) is smaller than 1.5 >>>>> Gb. I've tried to figure out what the BIOS thinks the geometry >>>>> is, but it doesn't seem to want to tell me. At least, I can't find >>>>> it in the BIOS menu anywhere. When I boot from the CD-ROM with >>>>> the 255 head geometry, though, it complains about the disk geometry, >>>>> saying 16h,63s != 255h,63s or something like that - it flies by >>>>> pretty fast (is there a way to go back and see that from the CD-ROM >>>>> "boot only" boot?). >>>>> >>>>> I'm using the "Standard" boot manager, and the entire disk is devoted >>>>> to FreeBSD. >>>>> >>>>> System >>>>> BIOS version PT84510A.86A.2004.P05 >>>>> Processor Type: Intel Pentium 4 >>>>> Processor speed: 2.20Ghz >>>>> >>>>> Memory: 512Mb >>>>> >>>>> Disk: Primary IDE Master ST380021A (Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 80Gb) >>>>> Primary IDE Slave: IOMega ZIP 250 >>>>> Secondary IDE Master: Sony CD-RW CRX19 (what I boot from to install) >>>>> Secondary IDE Slave: DVD-ROM DDU1621 >>>>> >>>>> Boot sequence: >>>>> 1) ATAPI CD-ROM >>>>> 2) Hard Drive >>>>> 3) "Removable Dev." >>>>> >>>>> "Modern BIOS" geometry: 155061/16/63 for ad0 >>>>> "calculated" geometry: 9729/255/63 for ad0 >>>>> >>>>> ad0s1 start=63, size=2875572 >>>>> ad0s2 start=2875635, size=10217340 >>>>> ad0s3 start=13092975, size=143203410 >>>>> unus start=156296384, size=5103 >>>>> >>>>> ad0s1a / 384Mb >>>>> ad0s1d /usr 1Gb >>>>> ad0s2b SWAP 1Gb >>>>> ad0s2d /tmp 384Mb >>>>> ad0s2e /var 512Mb >>>>> ad0s2f /var/mail 2Gb >>>>> ad0s2g /usr/ports 1Gb >>>>> ad0s3d /home/mysql 4Gb >>>>> ad0s3e /home 50Gb >>>>> ad0s3f /usr/src 3Gb >>>>> ad0s3g /usr/obj 3Gb >>>>> ad0s3h /extra 8483Mb >>>>> >>>>> Suggestions, please? I'm making zero headway right now. :( >>>> What version of FreeBSD are you running???? >>> Well, yes, I suppose that would be a good bit of information! >>> >>> What I'm *TRYING* to run is 8.0. It seems to install successfully >>> (of course - after doing all that), but then when I try to boot >>> from the hard drive, I see an otherwise-blank screen that says: >>> >>> >>> Invalid partition table >>> >>> >>> and that's as far as it goes! >>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list >>>> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions >>>> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >> There are reports of this sort of thing caused by 8.0 fdisk when doing a >> install from scratch over a hard drive that all ready has an older >> version of Freebsd installed on it. >> >> The solution is to force the scratching of the MBR on the disk first >> before running sysinstall fdisk. >> >> Boot a LiveFS CD, then at a root prompt do: >> >> sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=16 and: >> >> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/adx oseek=1 bs=512 count=1 >> >> where x equals your drive number. > > OK. I did exactly that. I confirmed that the second 512 bytes were zero > by doing a dd if/dev/ad0 bs=512 count=2 | od -c > and everything from 001000 through 002000 was zero. > > But I still got "Invalid partition table" after the installation. > > I guess I should set up one of my other systems as a local mirror. > I've done the installation so many time already, and it looks like > I'm not done yet! On the 8.0 fdisk/MBR subject. Doing dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/adx oseek=1 bs=512 count=1 was the solution from another post to the list with subject 'SunFire X2100 fails'. Here is another post that gives more details http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=322687+326879+/usr/local/ www/db/text/2009/freebsd-questions/20091227.freebsd-questions It seems in 8.0 gpart was introduced and a change was made to fdisk to support its sector o mbr format. 8.0 fdisk and disklabel are now broken. Searching the list archives may shed more light on your problem.