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Date:      Sat, 22 Jan 2000 18:35:47 -0500 (EST)
From:      Marwan Fayed <s0121430@cs.laurentian.ca>
To:        Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org>
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-mobile@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: disappearing mount points after install 
Message-ID:  <Pine.GSO.4.10.10001221832320.17872-100000@altair.cs.laurentian.ca>
In-Reply-To: <200001222301.PAA04945@mass.cdrom.com>

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OK, I'm glad about fstab and my mount points, but I have already tried
using 'a' and then i hit 's' to set bootable before I 'w' to write. I've
actually tried this more times than i can count!

When I do re-enter the fdisk using install disks though, the slice is no
longer marked 'A' for active. Perhaps this gives extra insight? Any other
ideas?

The offer for dinner to whoever solves this problem stands... when I'm in
town, of course! ;-)

Thanks in advance, as always.

Marwan


On Sat, 22 Jan 2000, Mike Smith wrote:

> > I am a seasoned UNIX user but have been using freebsd for only about 6
> > months. I have posted this problem to freebsd-questions with no response
> > so, figuring it must be a bug in the install program i'm going to try
> > here. Oh, I would like to have traced the code to try to find the bug (if
> > one exists) but being a senior year undergrad with a full course load and
> > thesis, I have been left with little time... please forgive me.
> > 
> > My problem is this. I am trying to install 3.3-R on an IBM Thinkpad 365XD
> > (although I have received mail from a man in France who is having the same
> > problem on a desktop). The installation runs completely smoothly but when
> > I finish and reboot the machine reports no resident O.S.
> 
> This will be due to you not having an active partition marked in the MBR,
> or not having a valid bootblock. Boot sysinstall, go to the configure
> menu, select the slice table/fdisk editor, select your slice and hit 'a'. 
> Then hit 'w' and write the data out; when prompted (both times) select 
> the 'standard MBR' option (remember that you have to actually select the 
> option before hitting Enter).
> 
> > After trying many different things (including messing with the MBR, double
> > and triple checking disk geometry, and using a Fixit disk to try to
> > diagnose the problem), I booted from the install floppy to the main
> > install menu.  Rather than re-install all over again for the nth time I
> > just entered the label editor. The partitions were still there but the
> > mount points were lost. What appeared was
> > this:
> > 
> > <none> 40M     // supposed to be root
> >  swap  84M     // swap is obviously OK
> > <none> 651M    // supposed to be /usr
> > 
> > This is clearly not what I designated
> 
> It is.  The label editor only tells you what's in the label; the 
> mountpoints are only stored in the fstab, which is not visible to the 
> label editor at this time.  What you're seeing here is normal and 
> indicates that both the MBR and the disklabel were written to your disk 
> correctly.  It's entirely unrelated to your current problem.
> -- 
> \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\  Mike Smith
> \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself,  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
> \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime.             \\  msmith@cdrom.com
> 
> 
> 



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