Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:58:23 +1000 From: Da Rock <rock_on_the_web@comcen.com.au> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: UFS partitioning Message-ID: <1228413503.79750.8.camel@laptop2.herveybayaustralia.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20081204154923.GB1366@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> References: <Pine.GSO.4.63.0812021048180.3801@hmacs.cmi.ua.ac.be> <20081202111740.96805018.freebsd@edvax.de> <20081202163920.GE90039@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> <1228355243.23645.10.camel@laptop1.herveybayaustralia.com.au> <18743.14461.951431.581673@jerusalem.litteratus.org> <1228359465.23645.27.camel@laptop1.herveybayaustralia.com.au> <20081204154923.GB1366@gizmo.acns.msu.edu>
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On Thu, 2008-12-04 at 10:49 -0500, Jerry McAllister wrote: > On Thu, Dec 04, 2008 at 12:57:45PM +1000, Da Rock wrote: > > > > > On Wed, 2008-12-03 at 20:55 -0500, Robert Huff wrote: > > > Da Rock writes: > > > > > > > Excuse my nose in here- I just have a couple of questions. > > > > > > > > 1) It IS possible to boot from a dedicated disk? > > > > > > Yes. Can't remember the last time I used anything else. > > > > So you've never booted from a disk that has been partitioned as a file > > system? > > You are getting your terms scrambled here. > Partitioning has nothing directly to do with creating a file system. > You can build a filesystem (with newfs) on just about any piece > of disk whether it is the whole disk, a slice of the disk or a partition > of a slice. > > Making one of those divisions bootable is also pretty much an > independant operation too, though as far as I know, only whole > disks and slices can be made bootable but not partitions - the > fact that the partition contains the system files is not what > makes it bootable. Being bootable is dependant on the boot sector > which gets the control from either the BIOS or an MBR and then finds > the system partition (/), mounts it (Read Only) and finds system files > and starts those things running. Yes, I would say I'm getting my terms mixed up- fortunately the actual reality is clear in my head (hard as that is to believe..). I have only one more question then: Why would you use "dangerously dedicated mode" at all? I can only see where it might be useful for files, no advantage to being a boot sector. It was some time ago that I read up on all this, but what I remembered was that BSD could use a dedicated disk- but only BSD could read and write from it and this is dangerous. Maybe what I was reading was regarding bootable and that was considered dangerous... At any rate I'm very clear now. Thanks for all the information guys- cheers
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