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Date:      Mon, 04 May 2009 15:17:23 -0600
From:      Brad Waite <freebsd@wcubed.net>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Broken drive geometry / partitions on 7.2 install
Message-ID:  <49FF5B63.40302@wcubed.net>

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Hi all,

I was trying to install 7.2 RELEASE on top of a previous 6.4 RELEASE I'd set up
(but not deployed).  The server has a 40MB Intel service partition and the rest
of the drive for FreeBSD.  Here's what greeted me when doing the fdisk from the
install CD:



Disk name:      da0                                    FDISK Partition Editor
DISK Geometry:  2209 cyls/255 heads/63 sectors = 35487585 sectors (17327MB)

Offset       Size(ST)        End     Name  PType       Desc  Subtype    Flags

         0         63         62        -     12     unused        0
        63      64197      64259    da0as1     4 Compaq Diagnostic       18
     64260    3013499    3077758        -     12     unused        0
   3077758      64197    3141955    da0cs1     4 Compaq Diagnostic       18
   3141956   32345629  354875584        -     12     unused        0



It says there's 2 service partition slices (type 18) and no FreeBSD slice.
Remember, I had successfully installed 6.4 on this drive and was able to boot
into both the service partition and FreeBSD.

I ended up deleting all the partitions and recreating them by hand.  I first
created the service partition slice with a size of 80262 (which is what
/sbin/fdisk under 6.4 reported), and the FBSD slice with a size of 35407260
(the remaining space).

After doing that, I was able to install 7.2 just fine and boot into it.  I was
also able to boot into the Intel service partition, since I hadn't blown over
any of the original slice.

However, this is what I get from /usr/sbin/sysinstall's fdisk now:



Disk name:      da0                                    FDISK Partition Editor
DISK Geometry:  2209 cyls/255 heads/63 sectors = 35487585 sectors (17327MB)

Offset       Size(ST)        End     Name  PType       Desc  Subtype    Flags

         0         63         62        -     12     unused        0
        63      64197      64259    da0s1      4 Compaq Diagnostic       18
     64260   35423325   35487584    da0s2      8    freebsd      165



And /sbin/fdisk reports the same:



******* Working on device /dev/da0 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=2209 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=2209 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 18 (0x12),(Compaq diagnostics)
    start 63, size 64197 (31 Meg), flag 0
        beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
        end: cyl 3/ head 254/ sector 63
The data for partition 2 is:
sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
    start 64260, size 35423325 (17296 Meg), flag 80 (active)
        beg: cyl 4/ head 0/ sector 1;
        end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63


Notice that I have only 2 slices, but the service partition slice is 64194
blocks instead of the 80262.  On top of this, when I boot from the 7.2 install
CD again, fdisk shows the same screwed-up setup with 2 Compaq Diag slices with
no FBSD slice.

What on earth is happening?  Is my drive geometry hosed?  Is this some sort of
weird LBA issue?  I'm nervous about configuring and deploying this machine
acting as it is.  I also have an identical machine that's reporting the same thing.

Thanks.



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