From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 14 08:59:18 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 91CBA16A41F for ; Wed, 14 Sep 2005 08:59:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from xfb52@dial.pipex.com) Received: from smtp-out5.blueyonder.co.uk (smtp-out5.blueyonder.co.uk [195.188.213.8]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0D40743D49 for ; Wed, 14 Sep 2005 08:59:17 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from xfb52@dial.pipex.com) Received: from [80.192.58.55] ([80.192.58.55]) by smtp-out5.blueyonder.co.uk with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6713); Wed, 14 Sep 2005 10:00:05 +0100 Message-ID: <4327E663.8080109@dial.pipex.com> Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 09:59:15 +0100 From: Alex Zbyslaw User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-GB; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050903 X-Accept-Language: en-us, pl MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gayn.winters@bristolsystems.com References: <014501c5b8b2$2a67c3a0$c901a8c0@workdog> In-Reply-To: <014501c5b8b2$2a67c3a0$c901a8c0@workdog> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 14 Sep 2005 09:00:05.0101 (UTC) FILETIME=[B2D481D0:01C5B90A] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Fixing a MBR (and more) that ??? trashed 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: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 08:59:18 -0000 Gayn Winters wrote: >>Alex Zbyslaw [mailto:xfb52@dial.pipex.com] >> >> >>Why do you think it's not safe to add hard drives? >> >> > >It doesn't seem "safe" if Windows blows away the multiboot MBR that >FreeBSD so carefully made! Windows overwriting the MBR seems to be the >reason people recommend loading Windows before loading FreeBSD, which I >do. I just never realized that this problem would come back to bite me >when I added another disk drive. > > I know of know reason why it should. I've added disks half a dozen times without blowing away any MBRs. Even the Windows blowing away the MBR is an annoyance, not a disaster since it is easy to rewrite. Whatever pickle you find yourself in seems to have to do with more than just adding a disk or Windows killing your MBR. >I need to be able to operate on my clients' disks. Sometimes I need a >tool that runs under Windows, and other times I need a tool that runs >under FBSD. This doesn't permit adding an OS to their disks. > I don't really understand what you're saying here; sorry. Dual boot machines are really common (I have three here) and despite adding disks to each of them at some point in their lives, I've never ended up with anything going wrong. > A >bootable external USB drive may be the ideal "Fixit" drive ... Of >course, I'd rather figure out how not to have the problem at all! It >would be nice if FreeBSD could write out whatever changes to the MBR and >the partition/slice tables that the new hardware required so that >Windows didn't feel obligated to "fix" things. > > FreeBSD can do that. I'm not denying that you're in a pickle, but that is not a necessary consequence of adding a disk. --Alex