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Date:      Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:50:07 +1000
From:      Tony Theodore <tonyt@logyst.com>
To:        samankaya@netscape.net
Cc:        freebsd-fs@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Partitioning disks on PPC for FreeBSD, installer crashes
Message-ID:  <22166b750907250950g741b3e2dqce1c046f8f5e351c@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <8CBDB36F2A2368E-1950-2250@webmail-me04.sysops.aol.com>
References:  <8CBDADB1950718E-16E8-7AF@webmail-dx04.sysops.aol.com> <22166b750907250326w4d490c76k70f9f43b0c3b51e2@mail.gmail.com> <8CBDB36F2A2368E-1950-2250@webmail-me04.sysops.aol.com>

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2009/7/25  <samankaya@netscape.net>:
> Many thanks Tony,
>
> I have ripped this disk out of an x86 so there were originally ext3 and NTFS
> partitions on it which I deleted from the x86 itself! The only thing I
> didn't delete was the filesystem which remained on the disk.
>
> Recently I stuck in a Debian installer and created one yaboot partition of
> 8MB and the rest as ext3. If I partition from Apples partitioner all I will
> get is HFS and HFS+ options and I am assuming here that BSD will not detect
> those either??
>
> There unfortunately is no option for selecting the entire disk. In fact
> under the installer I don't see the disk at all which is strange. I do via
> tty4 and the holographic terminal though.

You would have seen the disk at the point you were pressing "C" to
create a slice. It's the "A" option on this screen.

> Back when I started with Sun SPARC machines a few months ago, I figured out
> that Linux wouldn't see the disk or Solaris wouldn't see the disk depending
> on the label whether it was Sun or alternate. I am not sure if it is
> something similar here!

It could be, Sun use EFI, BIOS, and Open Firmware, and I think they
all read partition tables differently.

> I mean is there a way to partition using the Hg terminal at all??? As I
> stated I have discovered the newfs command but it is highly limited in what
> it can do and I have no idea how to use it either properly.

The commands you want are fdisk, bsdlabel, and newfs. If you're new to
FreeBSD, the man pages and handbook will take you very far. I'd stick
to the installer though, as you'll also have to create /etc/fstab
among other things that I wouldn't know where to start.
You could try this (from
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=bsdlabel&manpath=FreeBSD+7.1-RELEASE)

	   dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/da0 bs=512 count=32
	   fdisk -BI da0
	   dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/da0s1 bs=512 count=32
	   bsdlabel -w -B da0s1

Then relaunch the installer to see if it's recognised.

> What should be my next move?? I can happily try Apple's partitioner but I
> only have OS9 OS 10.1 and 10.2 neither of these guys allow for BSD partition
> tables if i recall correctly....

See if the Apple partitioner can create an MBR partition scheme. If
not, find a live cd with gparted. I normally use sysresccd.org, but
the ppc is very old.

Otherwise, freebsd-questions might be a better place to ask, as this
isn't really related to filesystems.

Regards,

Tony



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