From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Oct 14 05:21:28 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C269231 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 2013 05:21:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id E27E12AC8 for ; Mon, 14 Oct 2013 05:21:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-74-65.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.74.65]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3377E3C683; Mon, 14 Oct 2013 07:21:25 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id r9E5LInE004473; Mon, 14 Oct 2013 07:21:18 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 07:21:18 +0200 From: Polytropon To: Warren Block Subject: Re: Reinstall without reformat Message-Id: <20131014072118.8a49bd58.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: <20131013172430.71AA26018E@smtp.hushmail.com> <20131014040742.d03fa5bd.freebsd@edvax.de> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Kenta Suzumoto , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 05:21:28 -0000 On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 23:01:02 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote: > On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Polytropon wrote: > > > On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 13:24:30 -0400, Kenta Suzumoto wrote: > >> Hi all. Is it possible to install FreeBSD without formatting the disk? > > > > Yes. The installer supports not formatting existing partitions. > > The file system characteristica will be kept, possible content > > will overwritten. Note that "superfluous content" will also be > > kept, except of course you previously remove everything. > > sysinstall supported that, but AFAIK bsdinstall does not. Oh, seems you're right. I've checked The FreeBSD Handbook for the relevant instructions for using bsdinstall at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html and http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-final-warning.html and I didn't find an option to _not_ initialize existing partitions, even though it seems you can assign existing partitions without any problem. The remaining question: Will they be initialized again? I know that sysinstall had the option "newfs toggle" so you could skip the newfs step after you had assigned the existing partitions to the desired mountpoints. It can be seen at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/install-steps.html in Fig. 3.19 and 3.24. I have to admit that I didn't assume such a significant loss of functionality (that sysinstall provided!) in the new installer... :-( That's why maybe manually extracting the distribution files from the installation media, using the CLI tools, would probably the easiest thing: Manually mount existing partitions as desired, then extract the installation datasets, and apply any further modifications as needed. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...