Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 13:19:06 +0100 (BST) From: "K.J.Koster" <kjk1@ukc.ac.uk> To: freebsd-install@freebsd.org Subject: disklabel trouble Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.95.970710124057.6635B-100000@kestrel.ukc.ac.uk>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Dear FreeBSD-install,
I have been arguing with my system for nearly a week now, so I guess I
need some professional feedback. I'll try to keep this short, but I spend
so much time on it that I may need some venting ;)
I have a system with two SCSI disks, sd0 and sd1. This configuration ran
and installed flawlessly for a year or two. Last week, I got another disk,
sd2, which I planned to add to my system. My intention was to move root,
swap and /var onto sd1, and place /usr on sd2, thus allowing me to trash
sd0.
Ok, setting up sd2 was no big deal, enter /stand/sysinstall, fdisk, label,
mount and tarball /usr onto the disk, all this took half an hour,
including a tea break. Congratulations there.
In my innocence I expected moving the root, swap and /var would be equally
easy. How naive.
I did the same trick: enter /stand/sysinstall, label...
I get a message: You cannot label unless you first fdisk. Oh dear,
M$-DOS-like idiot protection. Not that I mind warning messages, but flat
refusal to allow me to screw up my own system is very unlike UNIX. Oh
well.
Back to fdisk, delete partition, create identical one, write changes,
re-enter label menu, now I can edit my slices, set up /mnt1, and /mnt2 and
the new swap partition, write changes...
I get a little box reading `/dev/rsd1s1a': device not configured. Excuse
me? A SCSI disk, not configured? In a kernel that mounted /usr for that
very same partition for weeks?
Oh well, so I'm an idiot. I must be doing something wrong then. Exit
sysinstall, find my old 2.1.5 cdrom, make a bootflop and reboot from that
one. Clever eh? Just pretend sd1 is empty and that I want a full FreeBSD
system on it. However, FreeBSD outsmarts me: `/dev/rsd1s1a': device not
configured, again. (I can hear smug laughter from my SCSI controller at
this point.)
Ok, I've been plugging and playing with SCSI cable connections and
power leads. Something's gone wrong there. Not so. All connectors are
firmly in place, no ID clashes, dmesg reports the drive is detected by my
controller, and after unplugging sd0, M$-DOS boots from the same disk
without a glitch, through the bootmanager, of course.
Ok, man pages, more tea and a restless night later: I decide to do
`disklabel -e'. If I want to run UNIX, I cannot expect my hand to be held
all the way. Decide on slice sizes, using sysinstall, then edit and write
a disklabel: no problem. Read the disklabel: no problem. Reboot the system
and reread the disk label: still there. Unbelievable. I must have a magic
touch that sysinstall does not have.
Ok, proceed to tarball /var, edit /etc/fstab to have root on sd0, as it
was before, and use swap and /var from sd1. No problem, system runs. What
sysinstall was complaining about is a mystery to me. Anyone?
Now the trick bit: moving root to sd1. I tarball the files, check
permissions, as I did before. Edit /mnt1/etc/fstab, so that the system
will come up with the right slices mounted in the right places. Remove sd0
from the system and set sd1 to sd0...
Reboot: Boot manager comes up, I press F1 for BSD: FreeBSD boot
menu comes up, I type [enter] **Crash and Burn** Hmm. I am an idiot after
all.
Reboot: Boot manager comes up, I press F3 for dos: to my eternal
frustration, M$-DOS boots as expected. Funny how that is. Whatever
complaints you may have about M$-DOS (and I can think of many), it always
boots.
This is of course a resume of what really happened in the past six days. I
tried disklabel -B, but the results are the same. I tried BOOTINST.EXE,
again resulting in the same: The system boots as far as the FreeBSD boot
menu, and when I type any request or option, the system talks to sd0 for a
second, and the reboots quickly, to avoid any useful error messages
clobbering the screen.
Sorry to make this such a long story, I hope you found it entertaining. I
am left with a limping system, so I hope that you could point me at a
manual page I missed, or a feature of fdisk or disklabel that I missed.
Groetjes,
Kees Jan
PS. Please CC me, I'm not on the list.
---------------------------------------------------------------v--
Kees Jan Koster tel: UK-1227-453157 e-mail: kjk1@ukc.ac.uk
15 St. Michaels Road, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom
------------------------------------------------------------------
What do you mean `compromise'. Am I wrong then?
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.SV4.3.95.970710124057.6635B-100000>