Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 14:00:04 -0800 (PST) From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de> To: freebsd-bugs Subject: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable Message-ID: <199601222200.OAA18970@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR conf/963; it has been noted by GNATS. From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de> To: muir@idiom.com (David Muir Sharnoff) Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 22:09:17 +0100 (MET) As David Muir Sharnoff wrote: > > > * Do you say you've been using the ``dangerously dedicated'' option? > * > * You are assumed you know what you are doing when using it. That's why > * it is not the default. > > The message says that you can't use it with DOS if you do that. ``This is dangerous in that it will make the drive totally uncooperative with other potential operating systems on the same disk. It will lead instead to a totally dedicated disk, starting at the very first sector, bypassing all BIOS geometry considerations. You will run into serious trouble with ST-506 and ESDI drives and possibly some IDE drives (e.g. drives running under the control of sort of disk manager). SCSI drives are considerably less at risk. Do you insist on dedicating the entire disk this way?'' I don't really know how to make it more explicit that this is dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. Please, submit a better warning text... we failed to find one. > That's fine. If I can't use my friendly neighboorhood boot selector, > then it should either mention that too or not let me. What the heck do you wanna use a boot selector for if the *entire* disk is dedicated? The BSD label starts at sector 0, so there's no more room for a fancy boot selector. The usage of a boot selector is not even offered for the regular sequence of doing things (the menu is bypassed if ``dangerously dedicated'' has been selected). This option is really only intended for people who don't care for anything else than BSD, but therefore do not understand why they had to undergo major hassles in tweaking their brain for a disk ``geometry'' that was never really important again for them. As i wrote: please submit a better text. -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
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