Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:56:06 -0500 (EST) From: Chris Pepper <pepper@reppep.com> To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org Subject: i386/61603: sysinstall: wrong geometry guessed Message-ID: <20040120015606.07251FE82@www.reppep.com> Resent-Message-ID: <200401200200.i0K20Oqb024748@freefall.freebsd.org>
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>Number: 61603 >Category: i386 >Synopsis: sysinstall: wrong geometry guessed >Confidential: no >Severity: non-critical >Priority: medium >Responsible: freebsd-i386 >State: open >Quarter: >Keywords: >Date-Required: >Class: sw-bug >Submitter-Id: current-users >Arrival-Date: Mon Jan 19 18:00:24 PST 2004 >Closed-Date: >Last-Modified: >Originator: Chris Pepper >Release: FreeBSD 4.9-STABLE i386 >Organization: >Environment: System: FreeBSD www.reppep.com 4.9-STABLE FreeBSD 4.9-STABLE #13: Thu Nov 13 23:50:39 EST 2003 root@www.reppep.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/REPPEP i386 >Description: sysinstall under 5.2-RELEASE guessed my geometry wrong. I have a 6gb WinXP partition and a 32gb FreeBSD partition. After upgrading from 4.9-STABLE (including requesting BootEasy), the system failed to boot. I was able to boot from CD and set currdev to load the 5.2 installation, and install BootEasy w/ boot0cfg, but not to get the system booting correctly -- with BootEasy, F2 for FreeBSD just beeped, although the WinXP installation was accessible. sysinstall chose a good geometry for this system from 4.5 through 4.9, but not booting from 5.2 disc 1. sysinstall 5.2 guessed 4865/255/63, which didn't work. fdisk inside 5.2 claimed 77545/16/63. pfdisk suggeted 1023/240/63, which worked for sysinstall when entered manually. Note: http://www.freebsd.org/relnotes/4-STABLE/installation/i386/trouble.html #4.2.2 claims sysinstall can determine the geometry from a 'DOS partition' at the beginning of the disk, but that didn't work for me. I will write up another PR for documentation issues associated with this problem. >How-To-Repeat: Install from 5.2-RELEASE CD on an HP Pavilion with 40gb WD disk, accepting sysinstall's (incorrect) geometry. >Fix: Make sysinstall smarter, if possible. Additionally, improve the documentation on disk geometry (next PR). Offer a method for fixing a usable FreeBSD installation without reinstalling. My system was bootable and looked fine, except boot code was missing. Presumably there is a way to install boot code for FreeBSD (for BootEasy to load) without reinstalling from scratch, but I was unable to find it. This is obscure, but would have been useful. >Release-Note: >Audit-Trail: >Unformatted:
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