Re: Reinstall without reformat
On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 1:21 AM, Polytropon free...@edvax.de wrote: On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 23:01:02 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote: On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Polytropon wrote: On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 13:24:30 -0400, Kenta Suzumoto wrote: Hi all. Is it possible to install FreeBSD without formatting the disk? Yes. The installer supports not formatting existing partitions. The file system characteristica will be kept, possible content will overwritten. Note that superfluous content will also be kept, except of course you previously remove everything. sysinstall supported that, but AFAIK bsdinstall does not. Oh, seems you're right. I've checked The FreeBSD Handbook for the relevant instructions for using bsdinstall at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html and http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-final-warning.html and I didn't find an option to _not_ initialize existing partitions, even though it seems you can assign existing partitions without any problem. The remaining question: Will they be initialized again? I know that sysinstall had the option newfs toggle so you could skip the newfs step after you had assigned the existing partitions to the desired mountpoints. It can be seen at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/install-steps.html in Fig. 3.19 and 3.24. I have to admit that I didn't assume such a significant loss of functionality (that sysinstall provided!) in the new installer... :-( That's why maybe manually extracting the distribution files from the installation media, using the CLI tools, would probably the easiest thing: Manually mount existing partitions as desired, then extract the installation datasets, and apply any further modifications as needed. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... OR Disconnect power line of existing HDD to be reinstalled . Attach another HDD or drive , for example USB stick . Perform a fresh install on the new unit . After verifying that the new install is working properly , Shutdown the computer , attach power of previous HDD , mount it , copy all of the new files from freshly installed unit into previous HDD, Shutdown the computer , Disconnect newly installed unit , Restart the computer . It is very likely that your previous HDD will work as like newly installed . OR Do the reverse : From previous HDD , copy all of the required files to the new HDD . Disconnect previous HDD or unit . Continue with the new HDD or unit . If the previous HDD is not bootable , it is necessary to continue with the new HDD . I am applying the second kind of steps for all my new installs . In that way nothing is broken , even there is no back up of the files because nothing applied to the existing HDD . The cost of this operation is to have a spare disk or a USB stick having sufficient capacity . Personally I am not using USB sticks for such operations because they may fail unexpectedly . Thank you very much . Mehmet Erol Sanliturk ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Reinstall without reformat
On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Polytropon wrote: On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 23:01:02 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote: On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Polytropon wrote: On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 13:24:30 -0400, Kenta Suzumoto wrote: Hi all. Is it possible to install FreeBSD without formatting the disk? Yes. The installer supports not formatting existing partitions. The file system characteristica will be kept, possible content will overwritten. Note that superfluous content will also be kept, except of course you previously remove everything. sysinstall supported that, but AFAIK bsdinstall does not. Oh, seems you're right. I've checked The FreeBSD Handbook for the relevant instructions for using bsdinstall at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html and http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-final-warning.html and I didn't find an option to _not_ initialize existing partitions, even though it seems you can assign existing partitions without any problem. The remaining question: Will they be initialized again? It is possible to mount filesystems manually from the shell and have bsdinstall continue with the install without formatting them. It's been a while since I tried that, and I don't recall the exact details. bsdinstall(8) suggests it may be as easy as just having the existing filesystems mounted at /mnt. Still, not something to try without a backup. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Reinstall without reformat
On Mon, 14 Oct 2013 07:51:15 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote: It is possible to mount filesystems manually from the shell and have bsdinstall continue with the install without formatting them. It's been a while since I tried that, and I don't recall the exact details. bsdinstall(8) suggests it may be as easy as just having the existing filesystems mounted at /mnt. Still, not something to try without a backup. So if I understand everything correctly, the decision logic is -- when partitions do already exist -- as follows: a) existing partitions not mounted: run newfs mount partitions copy files b) existing partitions mounted: do not run newfs copy files The installer itself doesn't seem to give a hint about this logic, even though the manual _might_ suggest it. I haven't examined the source code to fully verify this logic, even though it would be a reasonable approach. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Reinstall without reformat
The brutal and brute-force approach can work - better if you boot from a USB stick, of course. You can untar base.tzx and kernel.tzx in your /, with filesystems mounted. As Polytropon says, do a backup of what you'll want afterwards. This approach will leave a lot of cruft (old versions of shared libraries, etc.), but will certainly work. Grab the distribution from (in this case, the example is for 9.2, i386) ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/i386/9.2-RELEASE ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Reinstall without reformat
Hi all. Is it possible to install FreeBSD without formatting the disk? I have one directory of data that I want to keep. I can boot from the installer and rm every directory except that (/bin /boot etc), but how could I install the OS from there? I've done ZFS on root installs with the shell and mounting the zpool to /mnt, would that work here too? ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Reinstall without reformat
On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 13:24:30 -0400, Kenta Suzumoto wrote: Hi all. Is it possible to install FreeBSD without formatting the disk? Yes. The installer supports not formatting existing partitions. The file system characteristica will be kept, possible content will overwritten. Note that superfluous content will also be kept, except of course you previously remove everything. I have one directory of data that I want to keep. You should still make a backup, because I want to keep does imply exactly that in regards of an OS installation. :-) I can boot from the installer and rm every directory except that (/bin /boot etc), but how could I install the OS from there? You simply re-enter the installer, assign the (existing, but now empty) partitions to the desired mountpoint, make sure _not_ to newfs them, and then commit to the installation as usual. An alternative would be, after preparing the partitions, mount them as desired and extract the installation datasets from the installation media manually (via shell commands). Still you might miss other steps the installer performs. I've done ZFS on root installs with the shell and mounting the zpool to /mnt, would that work here too? Probably yes (never tried that myself). -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Reinstall without reformat
On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 23:01:02 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote: On Mon, 14 Oct 2013, Polytropon wrote: On Sun, 13 Oct 2013 13:24:30 -0400, Kenta Suzumoto wrote: Hi all. Is it possible to install FreeBSD without formatting the disk? Yes. The installer supports not formatting existing partitions. The file system characteristica will be kept, possible content will overwritten. Note that superfluous content will also be kept, except of course you previously remove everything. sysinstall supported that, but AFAIK bsdinstall does not. Oh, seems you're right. I've checked The FreeBSD Handbook for the relevant instructions for using bsdinstall at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-partitioning.html and http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/bsdinstall-final-warning.html and I didn't find an option to _not_ initialize existing partitions, even though it seems you can assign existing partitions without any problem. The remaining question: Will they be initialized again? I know that sysinstall had the option newfs toggle so you could skip the newfs step after you had assigned the existing partitions to the desired mountpoints. It can be seen at http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/install-steps.html in Fig. 3.19 and 3.24. I have to admit that I didn't assume such a significant loss of functionality (that sysinstall provided!) in the new installer... :-( That's why maybe manually extracting the distribution files from the installation media, using the CLI tools, would probably the easiest thing: Manually mount existing partitions as desired, then extract the installation datasets, and apply any further modifications as needed. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
