Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:45:11 +0200 From: Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl> To: PJ <af.gourmet@videotron.ca> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: boot sector f*ed Message-ID: <20090813214511.GA72324@slackbox.xs4all.nl> In-Reply-To: <4A847069.5050802@videotron.ca> References: <20090811173211.6FE4D106567B@hub.freebsd.org> <20090812193008.F19821@sola.nimnet.asn.au> <4A82A8D9.30406@videotron.ca> <20090812172704.GA27066@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <4A831DF7.9090506@videotron.ca> <20090812232810.GA37833@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <4A841AC2.1050809@videotron.ca> <20090813185726.GA66607@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <4A847069.5050802@videotron.ca>
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--uAKRQypu60I7Lcqm Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 03:58:33PM -0400, PJ wrote: > Roland Smith wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 09:53:06AM -0400, PJ wrote: > > =20 > >> I apologize for the lengthy explanation below, but perhaps it will give > >> some insight on what is see from this end: > >> > >> Ok, I've had all night to (subliminally) think about all this and > >> actually, I am tending more toward problems in FreeBSD... (this is not > >> an apology or a defense of my lack of knowledge or capacities, just a > >> clarification so you know what kind of a dummy you're dealing with) > >> First, let me explain that everything that we have been talking about - > >> the recovery methods, installation, hardware problems, etc. are all > >> extremely, and I mean extremely, subject to an awful lot of variables. > >> =20 > > > > I don't understand? > > > > I must confess that I find your explanations sometimes a bit vague. You= 're > > sitting in front of the machine with the problems. We (on the mailing l= ist) > > see only what you say. It is difficult for me at least to piece togethe= r what > > exactly happened. > > > > If you are reporting errors, try to be as specific as possible. E.g. do= n't say > > "I updated the machine and it doesn't boot anymore". Start with somethi= ng like: > > "After running freebsd-update with the options blabla" or "after updati= ng the > > machine from the 7.2 CD making the following choices...". And then say = "I got > > stuck in the FreeBSD logo screen", or "I got stuck on a screen showing = the > > lines 'Default: 0:ad(0,a)/boot/loader' and 'boot:'". That gives us at > > least a chance to see what has gone wrong. > > > > I must say that I have never used the method of updating from CD. I ten= d to > > update the system sources with csup(8), and then rebuild the kernel and > > applications from source as explained in the Handbook. This hase never = failed > > me yet. > > > > =20 > 1. Reporting the errors is a little difficult because more often than > not, the errors fly by too fast to be fully understandable. Error messages that have happened after the kernel has booted are still sav= ed inside the kernel message buffer. With the 'dmesg' command you can have a g= ood look at them. Additionally, a snapshot of this message buffer is written to /var/run/dmesg.boot after the filesystems are mounted. > 2. I usually and never (since way, way back) do not update from a CD, > except to boot up; I do the rest over ftp from the main source at > freebsd.org. and I use cvsup-without-gui. :-) I got the impression from one of your previous mails that you tried updating =66rom CD. > > Insert a USB thumbdrive and mount it. Copy the files to it, unmount. The > > GENERIC kernel on the CD should have all the necessary drivers for this= to work. > > Assuming that you're logged in as root, and that your USB drive is reco= gnized > > as /dev/da0s1: > > > > mkdir /usbdrive > > mount_msdosfs -m 644 -M 755 -l -o noatime -o sync /dev/da0s1 /usbdrive > > # copy the files you need... > > umount /usbdrive > > =20 > I'll try that; oddly, I was able to use my SanDisk 4gb cruzer before. > Chuck it into usb, mount /dev/cd0 to /mnt and go to it. But now, for > some strange reason it just wont mount. I'm getting messages that it's > not readable - "g_vfs_done input output error" and attempt to query > device size failed, medium may have changed. But the stick is fully > insertable, readable, removable from XP; as it was on FBSD. Weird. You shouldn't be using the /dev/cd0 device. It is a virtual CD and should be read-only.=20 =20 > > I don't understand what you mean by that? What do you mean by "doesn't = act the > > same"?=20 > > =20 > When turning on the computer, hit del and the bios setup comes on almost > immediately on the 3ghz machine. On the 2.4 machine it takes much, much > longer to start up (the monitor is Hitachi superScan Elite 812 on the > 3ghz machine, hitachi CM751 on the 2.4ghz) and when del is pressed the > bios goes through the entire scanniing process and then restarts before > finally going into the bios... and the versions of the bios and the > setup are both identical in nubers but, if I recall correctly, there are > some minor differences in some of the more arcane options that I never > even look at. And in general it always ran a bit sluggish. If the battery keeping the CMOS memory of the 2.4ghz machine has run out, t= he bios won remember its settings and e.g. has to scan for harddisks etc. And settings like boot sequence, memory timing etc. can have a lot of influence on boot time. > > I don't want to be rude, but you could have made a mistake somewhere. If > > you're futzing around with disks and partitions it is quite easy to scr= ew > > something up. Even for people with lots of experience it is sometimes a= case > > of PEBKAC. :-) > > > > =20 > I understand what you are saying and I don't take it to be rude at > all... actually, I don't screw around with the disks and the > partitions... I only try to read them to recover any files I may have > lost. So far, I have had 100% success on recovering lost data that was > important. > Up to now, when I had problems with crashes, I just reinstalled > everything, the OS, the programs loaded up the files that were recoverd > and whoopie... keep on chugging along. I did exactly that on this last > great effort - actually, it took a great deal of patience and > application to install the 64bit FBSD with flashplugin on the portable > and it took extreme patience to wait for all the updates and upgrades > and the searching and figuring out just how to configure and set up the > i386 on the 2.4ghz machine - and it all worked beautifully;=20 This is _exactly_ why you need good backups. So that you don't have to rein= stall everything again if something goes wrong. Blindly reinstalling is a windows solution.=20 For your systems that are running well, get an external harddisk that is at least as big as the one in the machine. On my website I have explained how = to prepare this disk in somewhat greater detail: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/freebsd/index.html#usb Then use the dump(8) command to make backups of the internal harddisk partitions and write them to the external harddisk. Say that you have mounted the external harddisk at /mnt/backups. = The following command makes a backup of the entire root partition, and compress= es it to save space: dump -0 -a -C 8 -L -u -f - / |gzip -1 >/mnt/backups/root-20090813.gz If you have /usr, /var or /home set up as seperate partitions (which is a g= ood idea), make dumps of those in the same way. Make new dumps regularly, so you don't loose too much data if you have to restore a broken system. You can u= se the restore(8) program to restore individual files or up to the whole nine yards from the backup. > I was really > happy that my ordeal was over and now I could get on with it. Not a nice > way to wake up in the morning with the box sputtering out ... > No, do not "futz around" - I have been doing my updates with portupgrade > - compilin the ports is long and terribly boring - that's usually when I > can write long e-mails ;-) and now I'm trying portmaster - but it is > giving me a bit of heartburn - it seems to stumble over itself - the > updates dont work too well. It seems, that when the updates span several > releases, portmaster does not know what it's doing - I caught it > upgrading to an older version when it aborted; and the dependencies seem > to suffer from the same kind of behavious.=20 If you are switching between major versions of FreeBSD (like from 6.x->7.2), the upgrade tools like portmaster and portupgrade don't always work perfect= ly, for technical reasons that I won't go in to. The only foolproof method in t= hat case is to delete all ports and reinstall them. For normal port updates, even between minor versions of FreeBSD it works ve= ry well, _provided_ that you read /usr/ports/UPDATING and follow any special instructions given there pertaining to ports that you use. Ignore those at your peril. > Make deinstall, make reinstall seems to be the best way... and then sit > there and watch the screen expecting to suddenly have the compiling be > interrruptted by the configuration scree. And that is often a pain... the= re > are so many options that mostly have no direct meaning for me of use, for > that matter. For example, ghostscript - do I really need it? I'm only usi= ng > 1 printer and that is a postscript Xerox Phaser 8200 that has no driver in > the ghostscript files. Being a postscript printer it doesn't need a ghostscript driver... But ghostscript is required by CUPS (the cups-base port, to be precise). Among other things to convert PDF to postscript. Note that you can configure cups-base not to use ghostscript. > And the same for gutenberg... and other > dependencies - I suppose that some are needed for various > implementations of different programs that call them... but that should > really be default settings. And who uses the the new ipv6 stuff? Nobody is forcing you to change them. You can use portmaster's -G option to prevent 'make config' from running. Roland --=20 R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) --uAKRQypu60I7Lcqm Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAkqEiWcACgkQEnfvsMMhpyXMYQCfcNkCOIQ6lpPGlpecpYFnATQL 6DYAn0uu74Znba0IIa5TNJoL70YDgdrY =3Lw5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --uAKRQypu60I7Lcqm--
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