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Date:      Sun, 13 May 2001 10:05:32 +0200
From:      Gerhard Sittig <Gerhard.Sittig@gmx.net>
To:        freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD 4.3-STABLE Install problems, BOOT FAILURE after freshinstallation
Message-ID:  <20010513100532.K253@speedy.gsinet>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0105122133180.17454-100000@beastie.saturn-tech.com>; from drussell@saturn-tech.com on Sat, May 12, 2001 at 09:40:52PM -0600
References:  <3AFDAA55.90BA01A1@home.com> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0105122133180.17454-100000@beastie.saturn-tech.com>

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On Sat, May 12, 2001 at 21:40 -0600, Doug Russell wrote:
> 
> You can also always boot with a DOS diskette and use 'fdisk /mbr' to write
> a standard bot manager to the disk, or copy the first sector from a good 
> disk to the offending one using something like (bs=512 should be default):
> 
> 'dd if=/dev/xxx of=/dev/xxx bs=512 count=1'

DANGER, Will Robinson!

Do *not* copy all the 512 bytes from one MBR to another, since
this way you will transfer boot code _plus_ the partition table.
And I assume you don't want this to happen unless you want an
identical layout for both disks.  (Yes, I've been bitten by this
mistake myself, that's why I know of the problems arising
afterwards. :)

There's two bytes of bootsect signature (0x55AA or 0xAA55) and
four times 16 bytes for the partition entries.  So you want to
transfer 446 bytes only.


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