From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 6 22:36:12 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C814106564A for ; Thu, 6 Jan 2011 22:36:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from xaero@xaerolimit.net) Received: from mail-ew0-f54.google.com (mail-ew0-f54.google.com [209.85.215.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DAFF08FC0C for ; Thu, 6 Jan 2011 22:36:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy24 with SMTP id 24so7911277ewy.13 for ; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:36:10 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.213.36.2 with SMTP id r2mr10727250ebd.51.1294353370511; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:36:10 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.213.8.142 with HTTP; Thu, 6 Jan 2011 14:35:50 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: <20101229120038.3DFB0106591A@hub.freebsd.org> <20101230133126.O36121@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <20101231105353.S36121@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <20110102102255.00004f57@unknown> <20110102230702.N49334@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <20110103022619.O49334@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <20110104143245.P49334@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <20110105152725.U49334@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <20110106160720.B49334@sola.nimnet.asn.au> From: Chris Brennan Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 17:35:50 -0500 Message-ID: To: Adam Vande More Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: Bruce Cran , Ian Smith , FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: a new hard-drive in a 2y/o laptop 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: Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:36:12 -0000 GMail threadding don't fail me now! On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 4:54 AM, Adam Vande More wrote: > This is a pretty easy problem to replicate if you are pressing W, and that > "issue" has existed for quite some time. If you press W then Q at > sysinstall fdisk then attempt to force write disklabel screens you will get > the error. Just setup the slices and partitions as you want and let > sysinstall handle the writing of information. There is a big warning box > that says not to use force write except under certain conditions and this is > not one of them. > > If you google the error message in the OP, the first result is: > > http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=1675 > > > pressing 'W' was a last resort option, by no means was I starting off that way. > Failing that, I can't see other than a hardware issue, unless somehow >> sysinstall is broken and you may do better manually running fdisk and >> bsdlabel and newfs per Handbook and manuals? >> > > This doesn't say hardware error to me at all, at least not a disk hardware > issue. The message was present across two disks, and if there truly is a > problem writing to the media a complete zeroing of the drive would be > apparent then. > > No, only one disk. > While we're getting people to look at sysinstall and the auto resizing, it > would be nice to get the "Unable to create the partition. Too big?" issue > resolved. You can trigger this by auto-sizing the partitions, deleting a > couple and recreating one that a different size than one autosize > suggested. Then create the second partion using the auto-populated value in > partition size box. Typically run into this when making / a little bigger > on amd64 installs by borrowing some space from /usr. It's very tedious to > slowly decrease the size of the second partition in your attempts to create > it if you're trying to utilize the whole drive. > > > -- > Adam Vande More >