Re: how to boot or access problem file system
Gardner Bell gbel...@rogers.com wrote: The stench from Denmark is getting to me... ;-) Insulting much with your remark about Denmark? Methinks it be an oblique reference to a line from Shakespeare's play about the Dane with no insult intended, then or now. ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
Gardner Bell wrote: Gardner Bell --- On Fri, 7/31/09, PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca wrote: From: PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca Subject: Re: how to boot or access problem file system To: Roland Smith rsm...@xs4all.nl Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: Friday, July 31, 2009, 8:44 PM PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 03:42:43PM -0400, PJ wrote: Basically, the news is not good. The directories files are not what I had to begin with. ls /dev/ad0s1 or any disk/slice merely gets: Permission denied. Now that is certainly weird. :-) I've never come across something like that. What do 'mount' and 'ls -ld /dev' return? Maybe /dev is mounted with incorrect permissions. You are logged in as root, I presume? Now, how could I be logged in? from livefs? On bootup, I see ar0 boot error or something like that... ls /dev ... shows ad0, ad10, ad12, ad4 and ar0 ad0 only has ad0s1 (I assume this to be ntfs ad10 also has s1, s1a, s1b, c, d, e, e, suffixes ad4 has s1, s1a, s1b, no c, but d, e, f suffixes The stench from Denmark is getting to me... ;-) Insulting much with your remark about Denmark? Read Shakespeare ! (Or look up the phrase Something is rotten in Denmark on Google. ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
per...@pluto.rain.com wrote: Gardner Bell gbel...@rogers.com wrote: The stench from Denmark is getting to me... ;-) Insulting much with your remark about Denmark? Methinks it be an oblique reference to a line from Shakespeare's play about the Dane with no insult intended, then or now. ___ 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 Methinks I've found a literary genius amid this swamp of digital mechanics. ;-) -- Hervé Kempf: Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme. - Phil Jourdan --- p...@ptahhotep.com http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
On Thursday 30 July 2009 23:14:39 PJ wrote: But isn't it strange that it used to be pretty simple to upgrade and update. But recently, I notice that communication between the developers and users (or is it the manual page writers) are getting far away from the realities of user/operational needs. Oh, what's the sense of beating a dead horse, mechanics will never be writers... let's not kid ourselves. I may be misunderstanding what you've been saying over the last couple of days (I can understand your frustration, but your questions would be much clearer if you didn't let it spill over into chippy remarks about FreeBSD like the above). Let me summarise what I think you've said, and what I think it means, and please, correct me if I'm wrong. You run a custom kernel, and you decided for your latest system upgrade that you would use freebsd-update, which as far as I know doesn't work with custom kernels. You discovered this and tried to move your custom kernel aside and put a GENERIC kernel in place for the upgrade, rebooted in the middle of the process, and now when you try and boot up, your system can't find a kernel - which is why the bootloader is asking you to tell it where to look. If that's the case, your data should all still be there in the original slices/partitions (others have told you how to check that). You are likely to struggle to get the system booted unless you can work out where to direct the bootloader to find a kernel, but you may well be able to inspect the data on the disk if you boot a LiveCD (which is a version of FreeBSD that runs from the CD - there's one in the release set). Given the problems you've encountered so far, and the level of effort and learning that's acceptable to you in your situation to try and resolve it, I would suggest you go and buy a new hard drive (they're not expensive these days compared with the cost of your time), and fit it alongside your messed-up drive in your computer. You can then do a fresh install on the new drive, get everything set up the way you want, and then retrieve the data from the old hard drive (various ways to do this: mounting the drive and simply copying files, dump and restore of complete filesystems, etc). You've also thrown in a new problem, which is that X doesn't recognise your mouse. Unfortunately, that doesn't have much to do with FreeBSD. It's a result of a decision by the X developers to require a hardware abstraction layer - you probably need to enable hal and dbus. Googling will put you on the right track. Jonathan ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 03:20:55PM -0400, PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 01:40:58PM -0400, PJ wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? I forgot to mention that your boot sector is fine. If it were screwed up, you wouldn't get to the boot prompt. Since the boot code cannot locate your kernel, there are several things that could have gone wrong. See below. snip The /usr files should be ok but how to access? Use fsck_ffs to try and repair the filesystem. how can I use it if I can't boot or access the file system? Use a livefs cd or use the Fixit option in the main menu of sysinstall on an install disk. That should get you a shell where you can run fsck_ffs on your disk partitions. If you have booted from CD, list the disk devices with e.g. 'ls /dev/ad*'. If you have SCSI drives, use 'da' instead of 'ad'. What does that command list? On my machine, I'll get something like this: /dev/ad4 /dev/ad4s1d /dev/ad6 /dev/ad6s1d /dev/ad4s1 /dev/ad4s1e /dev/ad6s1 /dev/ad6s1e /dev/ad4s1a /dev/ad4s1f /dev/ad6s1a /dev/ad6s1f /dev/ad4s1b /dev/ad4s1g /dev/ad6s1b /dev/ad6s1g /dev/ad4s1c /dev/ad4s1g.eli /dev/ad6s1c /dev/ad6s1g.eli If you only see e.g. /dev/ad4 and /dev/ad6, your slice table has been overwritten (with fdisk) and your data is lost. If you see /dev/ad4s1 but not /dev/ad4s1a-g, the BSD partitions have been removed and your data is lost as well. Since there is only one slice on both ad4 and ad6 (otherwise you'd see /dev/ad4s2x) The next step is to examine the disk labels: bsdlabel /dev/ad4s1 # /dev/ad4s1: 8 partitions: #size offsetfstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] a: 1024000 164.2BSD 2048 16384 64008 b: 16777216 1024016 swap c: 9767680020unused0 0 # raw part, don't edit d: 4194304 178012324.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 e: 104857600 219955364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 f: 41943040 1268531364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 g: 807971826 1687961764.2BSD 2048 16384 0 This tells us that the a, d, e, f and g partition are carrying a BSD filesystem, and should be checked with fsck_ffs. Try these steps and report back what you find. I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. Make regular backups. Especially before big upgrades. Maybe the real problem is that the manual is too screwed up (why are there so many problems being brought up on the mailing lists? we can't all be that stupid.) It is a mailing list for questions. Ipso facto you'll see questions and problems on this list. People who are not having problems will not be posting very much. :-) As to the handbook, this is by necessity written by people who are knowledgeable on the subject they write on. Unfortunately this sometimes lead to really basic steps/assumptions being skipped because they are self-evident for the writer. If you gain enough knowledge about a subject it becomes really hard to write for people new to the system because you've internalized a lot of stuff by then. If you have specific questions about parts of the handbook, ask. Roland Thanks for replying Roland, I've been struggling with upgrading 7.0 to 7.2... it has taken a lot of my time and I am still not happy. I have it running now; Xorg finally came through but I have absolutely no idea how or why it finally started working. Actually, it was my last attempt to start it and I was totally surprised that it came up. I decided to try my former xorg.conf file which had the correct mouse driver etc. that hal did not find. X -configure was useless and totally off the track and tweaking the xorg.conf.new file did not work. In total desperation I had installed all the xorg files needed or not and hoped that might help... at first, it did not, at least I couldn't tell as there was no change. But getting flashplayer to work... that's an impossibility as I can see on this machine. Nor does gnash work... it installs and shows up under about:plugins on Firefox... but that's as far as it goest... same for flashplayer9 and linux-f8-flashplayer10 can't find the files to download ( but a few days ago they were available and worked on the amd64 system). Anyway... back to the messed up 7.1 installation. I ran livefs 7.1 and chose option 6 (I think; it was the last on the list) and I got the boot cursor (I think) ... so I entered? and got the list of commands. BTW, I don't know where to find some instructions on how to use the livefs and the command line procedures to work with to do a reccovery. For one, I find that the screen scrolls by so fast, I miss half of
Re: how to boot or access problem file system
On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 02:36:23PM -0400, PJ wrote: Thanks for replying Roland, I've been struggling with upgrading 7.0 to 7.2... it has taken a lot of my time and I am still not happy. snip Anyway... back to the messed up 7.1 installation. I ran livefs 7.1 and chose option 6 (I think; it was the last on the list) and I got the boot cursor (I think) ... Don't do that. Just wait and let the system boot, or choose 1, which amounts to the same. Then choose your country and keyboard settings from the menus you are presented with. Next, you come into the sysinstall main menu. Choose Fixit, and in the next menu choose 2 CDROM/DVD. Now you enter the standard 'sh'. If you want, type 'tcsh' to start the C shell. I find that more convenient because it uses tab completion for commands and files. You can now use all the commands that are available in the base system. No go back to my previous message and see what if anything is wrong with your disk partitions. cd devices: cd0: Device 0x1 disk devices: disk0: BIOS drive a: disk1: BIOS drive C: disk1s1: Unknown fs: 0x7 (I think this must be ntfs ? but ? ) disk2: BIOS drive D: disk3: BIOS drive E: disk3s1a: FFS disk3s1b: swap disk3s1d: FFS disk3s1e: FFS disk3s1f: FFS Do you have a dual boot installation with FreeBSD on a second drive? Roland -- 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) pgptfYctqbFvD.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: how to boot or access problem file system
Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 03:20:55PM -0400, PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 01:40:58PM -0400, PJ wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? I forgot to mention that your boot sector is fine. If it were screwed up, you wouldn't get to the boot prompt. Since the boot code cannot locate your kernel, there are several things that could have gone wrong. See below. snip The /usr files should be ok but how to access? Use fsck_ffs to try and repair the filesystem. how can I use it if I can't boot or access the file system? Use a livefs cd or use the Fixit option in the main menu of sysinstall on an install disk. That should get you a shell where you can run fsck_ffs on your disk partitions. If you have booted from CD, list the disk devices with e.g. 'ls /dev/ad*'. If you have SCSI drives, use 'da' instead of 'ad'. What does that command list? On my machine, I'll get something like this: /dev/ad4 /dev/ad4s1d /dev/ad6 /dev/ad6s1d /dev/ad4s1 /dev/ad4s1e /dev/ad6s1 /dev/ad6s1e /dev/ad4s1a /dev/ad4s1f /dev/ad6s1a /dev/ad6s1f /dev/ad4s1b /dev/ad4s1g /dev/ad6s1b /dev/ad6s1g /dev/ad4s1c /dev/ad4s1g.eli /dev/ad6s1c /dev/ad6s1g.eli If you only see e.g. /dev/ad4 and /dev/ad6, your slice table has been overwritten (with fdisk) and your data is lost. If you see /dev/ad4s1 but not /dev/ad4s1a-g, the BSD partitions have been removed and your data is lost as well. Since there is only one slice on both ad4 and ad6 (otherwise you'd see /dev/ad4s2x) The next step is to examine the disk labels: bsdlabel /dev/ad4s1 # /dev/ad4s1: 8 partitions: #size offsetfstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] a: 1024000 164.2BSD 2048 16384 64008 b: 16777216 1024016 swap c: 9767680020unused0 0 # raw part, don't edit d: 4194304 178012324.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 e: 104857600 219955364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 f: 41943040 1268531364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 g: 807971826 1687961764.2BSD 2048 16384 0 This tells us that the a, d, e, f and g partition are carrying a BSD filesystem, and should be checked with fsck_ffs. Try these steps and report back what you find. I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. Make regular backups. Especially before big upgrades. Maybe the real problem is that the manual is too screwed up (why are there so many problems being brought up on the mailing lists? we can't all be that stupid.) It is a mailing list for questions. Ipso facto you'll see questions and problems on this list. People who are not having problems will not be posting very much. :-) As to the handbook, this is by necessity written by people who are knowledgeable on the subject they write on. Unfortunately this sometimes lead to really basic steps/assumptions being skipped because they are self-evident for the writer. If you gain enough knowledge about a subject it becomes really hard to write for people new to the system because you've internalized a lot of stuff by then. If you have specific questions about parts of the handbook, ask. Roland I get the impression that my disks have all been overwritten; it's rather strange that in the instructions to upgrade it says to not change anything on the Newfs... and that files would not be overwritten... is that at fact? If that is true, then surely it should be possible to recover files in the /usr /var and /tmp directories. If the disks have not been overwritten... I think there was a huge misinformation gap here if this is not so... If we're upgrading a file system, there is no reason to either format or overwrite those directories and/or slices that are not involved. Anyway, I'm waiting to hear if there is any hoope here or do I just go ahead an reinstall everything? -- Hervé Kempf: Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme. - Phil Jourdan --- p...@ptahhotep.com http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
Roland Smith wrote: On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 02:36:23PM -0400, PJ wrote: Thanks for replying Roland, I've been struggling with upgrading 7.0 to 7.2... it has taken a lot of my time and I am still not happy. snip Anyway... back to the messed up 7.1 installation. I ran livefs 7.1 and chose option 6 (I think; it was the last on the list) and I got the boot cursor (I think) ... Don't do that. Just wait and let the system boot, or choose 1, which amounts to the same. Then choose your country and keyboard settings from the menus you are presented with. Next, you come into the sysinstall main menu. Choose Fixit, and in the next menu choose 2 CDROM/DVD. Now you enter the standard 'sh'. If you want, type 'tcsh' to start the C shell. I find that more convenient because it uses tab completion for commands and files. You can now use all the commands that are available in the base system. No go back to my previous message and see what if anything is wrong with your disk partitions. cd devices: cd0: Device 0x1 disk devices: disk0: BIOS drive a: disk1: BIOS drive C: disk1s1: Unknown fs: 0x7 (I think this must be ntfs ? but ? ) disk2: BIOS drive D: disk3: BIOS drive E: disk3s1a: FFS disk3s1b: swap disk3s1d: FFS disk3s1e: FFS disk3s1f: FFS Do you have a dual boot installation with FreeBSD on a second drive? Roland Basically, the news is not good. The directories files are not what I had to begin with. ls /dev/ad0s1 or any disk/slice merely gets: Permission denied. Not a dual boot installation - pure FreeBSD. I was using this as a server with apache/mysql/samba/cups + a number of programs like Netbeans, Openoffice, Gimp, Inkscape. etc. etc. But I suppose I could move the disks to another machine, or maybe better, add a Windows disk to this box... -- Hervé Kempf: Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme. - Phil Jourdan --- p...@ptahhotep.com http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 03:12:21PM -0400, PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 03:20:55PM -0400, PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 01:40:58PM -0400, PJ wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? I forgot to mention that your boot sector is fine. If it were screwed up, you wouldn't get to the boot prompt. Since the boot code cannot locate your kernel, there are several things that could have gone wrong. See below. snip The /usr files should be ok but how to access? Use fsck_ffs to try and repair the filesystem. how can I use it if I can't boot or access the file system? Use a livefs cd or use the Fixit option in the main menu of sysinstall on an install disk. That should get you a shell where you can run fsck_ffs on your disk partitions. If you have booted from CD, list the disk devices with e.g. 'ls /dev/ad*'. If you have SCSI drives, use 'da' instead of 'ad'. What does that command list? On my machine, I'll get something like this: /dev/ad4 /dev/ad4s1d /dev/ad6 /dev/ad6s1d /dev/ad4s1 /dev/ad4s1e /dev/ad6s1 /dev/ad6s1e /dev/ad4s1a /dev/ad4s1f /dev/ad6s1a /dev/ad6s1f /dev/ad4s1b /dev/ad4s1g /dev/ad6s1b /dev/ad6s1g /dev/ad4s1c /dev/ad4s1g.eli /dev/ad6s1c /dev/ad6s1g.eli If you only see e.g. /dev/ad4 and /dev/ad6, your slice table has been overwritten (with fdisk) and your data is lost. If you see /dev/ad4s1 but not /dev/ad4s1a-g, the BSD partitions have been removed and your data is lost as well. Since there is only one slice on both ad4 and ad6 (otherwise you'd see /dev/ad4s2x) The next step is to examine the disk labels: bsdlabel /dev/ad4s1 # /dev/ad4s1: 8 partitions: #size offsetfstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] a: 1024000 164.2BSD 2048 16384 64008 b: 16777216 1024016 swap c: 9767680020unused0 0 # raw part, don't edit d: 4194304 178012324.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 e: 104857600 219955364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 f: 41943040 1268531364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 g: 807971826 1687961764.2BSD 2048 16384 0 This tells us that the a, d, e, f and g partition are carrying a BSD filesystem, and should be checked with fsck_ffs. Try these steps and report back what you find. I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. Make regular backups. Especially before big upgrades. Maybe the real problem is that the manual is too screwed up (why are there so many problems being brought up on the mailing lists? we can't all be that stupid.) It is a mailing list for questions. Ipso facto you'll see questions and problems on this list. People who are not having problems will not be posting very much. :-) As to the handbook, this is by necessity written by people who are knowledgeable on the subject they write on. Unfortunately this sometimes lead to really basic steps/assumptions being skipped because they are self-evident for the writer. If you gain enough knowledge about a subject it becomes really hard to write for people new to the system because you've internalized a lot of stuff by then. If you have specific questions about parts of the handbook, ask. I get the impression that my disks have all been overwritten; it's Don't have impressions. Get the data. Boot from a livefs CD and start a shell as explained in in some of my previous messages. Then use the commands listed above to check your filesystems. *And report back wat you found*. rather strange that in the instructions to upgrade it says to not change anything on the Newfs... and that files would not be overwritten... is that at fact? What instructions are you referring to? Neither the handbook section [http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/updating-freebsdupdate.html] nor the manual page for freebsd-update mention newfs at all! Nor should they. If that is true, then surely it should be possible to recover files in the /usr /var and /tmp directories. If the disks have not been overwritten... I think there was a huge misinformation gap here if this is not so... For an upgrade, the filesystems are not overwritten. Only a new install creates new filesystems. Please boot from a livefs CD and check the filesystems on the harddisk as explained before and report the results. Roland -- 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)
Re: how to boot or access problem file system
On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 03:42:43PM -0400, PJ wrote: Basically, the news is not good. The directories files are not what I had to begin with. ls /dev/ad0s1 or any disk/slice merely gets: Permission denied. Now that is certainly weird. :-) I've never come across something like that. What do 'mount' and 'ls -ld /dev' return? Maybe /dev is mounted with incorrect permissions. You are logged in as root, I presume? What strikes me as strange is that your data from the boot prompt suggest that your FreeBSD install is on ad3 instead of on ad0. You haven't messed with the cabling from the disks, or changed BIOS settings regarding the boot sequence, have you? Roland -- 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) pgperqaqVrGah.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: how to boot or access problem file system
Roland Smith wrote: On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 03:12:21PM -0400, PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 03:20:55PM -0400, PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 01:40:58PM -0400, PJ wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? I forgot to mention that your boot sector is fine. If it were screwed up, you wouldn't get to the boot prompt. Since the boot code cannot locate your kernel, there are several things that could have gone wrong. See below. snip The /usr files should be ok but how to access? Use fsck_ffs to try and repair the filesystem. how can I use it if I can't boot or access the file system? Use a livefs cd or use the Fixit option in the main menu of sysinstall on an install disk. That should get you a shell where you can run fsck_ffs on your disk partitions. If you have booted from CD, list the disk devices with e.g. 'ls /dev/ad*'. If you have SCSI drives, use 'da' instead of 'ad'. What does that command list? On my machine, I'll get something like this: /dev/ad4 /dev/ad4s1d /dev/ad6 /dev/ad6s1d /dev/ad4s1 /dev/ad4s1e /dev/ad6s1 /dev/ad6s1e /dev/ad4s1a /dev/ad4s1f /dev/ad6s1a /dev/ad6s1f /dev/ad4s1b /dev/ad4s1g /dev/ad6s1b /dev/ad6s1g /dev/ad4s1c /dev/ad4s1g.eli /dev/ad6s1c /dev/ad6s1g.eli If you only see e.g. /dev/ad4 and /dev/ad6, your slice table has been overwritten (with fdisk) and your data is lost. If you see /dev/ad4s1 but not /dev/ad4s1a-g, the BSD partitions have been removed and your data is lost as well. Since there is only one slice on both ad4 and ad6 (otherwise you'd see /dev/ad4s2x) The next step is to examine the disk labels: bsdlabel /dev/ad4s1 # /dev/ad4s1: 8 partitions: #size offsetfstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] a: 1024000 164.2BSD 2048 16384 64008 b: 16777216 1024016 swap c: 9767680020unused0 0 # raw part, don't edit d: 4194304 178012324.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 e: 104857600 219955364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 f: 41943040 1268531364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 g: 807971826 1687961764.2BSD 2048 16384 0 This tells us that the a, d, e, f and g partition are carrying a BSD filesystem, and should be checked with fsck_ffs. Try these steps and report back what you find. I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. Make regular backups. Especially before big upgrades. Maybe the real problem is that the manual is too screwed up (why are there so many problems being brought up on the mailing lists? we can't all be that stupid.) It is a mailing list for questions. Ipso facto you'll see questions and problems on this list. People who are not having problems will not be posting very much. :-) As to the handbook, this is by necessity written by people who are knowledgeable on the subject they write on. Unfortunately this sometimes lead to really basic steps/assumptions being skipped because they are self-evident for the writer. If you gain enough knowledge about a subject it becomes really hard to write for people new to the system because you've internalized a lot of stuff by then. If you have specific questions about parts of the handbook, ask. I get the impression that my disks have all been overwritten; it's Don't have impressions. Get the data. Boot from a livefs CD and start a shell as explained in in some of my previous messages. Then use the commands listed above to check your filesystems. *And report back wat you found*. rather strange that in the instructions to upgrade it says to not change anything on the Newfs... and that files would not be overwritten... is that at fact? What instructions are you referring to? Neither the handbook section [http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/updating-freebsdupdate.html] nor the manual page for freebsd-update mention newfs at all! Nor should they. Well, it sounds like we should be ok, but the instructions I am speaking of are those on the installation disks ... when one selects the update to a newer version and then as asked to set the slice names /; swap; /tmp; and /var. If I have made an error in this, then I can only put the full blame on whoever created the installation system... there should be the most obvious checks balances about such an installation/upgrade as - warnings about what the installation is going to do, and are you sure this is what you want to do; and warnings that any existing files will be
Re: how to boot or access problem file system
Roland Smith wrote: On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 03:42:43PM -0400, PJ wrote: Basically, the news is not good. The directories files are not what I had to begin with. ls /dev/ad0s1 or any disk/slice merely gets: Permission denied. Now that is certainly weird. :-) I've never come across something like that. What do 'mount' and 'ls -ld /dev' return? Maybe /dev is mounted with incorrect permissions. You are logged in as root, I presume? What strikes me as strange is that your data from the boot prompt suggest that your FreeBSD install is on ad3 instead of on ad0. You haven't messed with the cabling from the disks, or changed BIOS settings regarding the boot sequence, have you? Roland No cabling changes... but I did try different boot options... My setup is a raid1 mirror setup on two 75gb sata disks and another 80gb sata disk as well as another 40gb disk(who know what's on it) could be WindowsXP, but I haven't used it. I could try running PartitionMagic to see what's on there; but there's no guarantee it'll show anything... will try now. Ok, PM shows disk1 as ntfs; Disk2 is FreeBSD/386 76,316.6mb 0.0 unused active Primary Strange that it shows as full... wasnt when it was working. Weird if not strange... whereis disk 3 ? I may have to open the box... -- Hervé Kempf: Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme. - Phil Jourdan --- p...@ptahhotep.com http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 03:42:43PM -0400, PJ wrote: Basically, the news is not good. The directories files are not what I had to begin with. ls /dev/ad0s1 or any disk/slice merely gets: Permission denied. Now that is certainly weird. :-) I've never come across something like that. What do 'mount' and 'ls -ld /dev' return? Maybe /dev is mounted with incorrect permissions. You are logged in as root, I presume? Now, how could I be logged in? from livefs? On bootup, I see ar0 boot error or something like that... ls /dev ... shows ad0, ad10, ad12, ad4 and ar0 ad0 only has ad0s1 (I assume this to be ntfs ad10 also has s1, s1a, s1b, c, d, e, e, suffixes ad4 has s1, s1a, s1b, no c, but d, e, f suffixes The stench from Denmark is getting to me... ;-) ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
Gardner Bell --- On Fri, 7/31/09, PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca wrote: From: PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca Subject: Re: how to boot or access problem file system To: Roland Smith rsm...@xs4all.nl Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: Friday, July 31, 2009, 8:44 PM PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 03:42:43PM -0400, PJ wrote: Basically, the news is not good. The directories files are not what I had to begin with. ls /dev/ad0s1 or any disk/slice merely gets: Permission denied. Now that is certainly weird. :-) I've never come across something like that. What do 'mount' and 'ls -ld /dev' return? Maybe /dev is mounted with incorrect permissions. You are logged in as root, I presume? Now, how could I be logged in? from livefs? On bootup, I see ar0 boot error or something like that... ls /dev ... shows ad0, ad10, ad12, ad4 and ar0 ad0 only has ad0s1 (I assume this to be ntfs ad10 also has s1, s1a, s1b, c, d, e, e, suffixes ad4 has s1, s1a, s1b, no c, but d, e, f suffixes The stench from Denmark is getting to me... ;-) Insulting much with your remark about Denmark? ___ 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 ___ 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
how to boot or access problem file system
What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? The /usr files should be ok but how to access? I get errors that the file system is full and I have no idea of how to deal with the boot up - the help message is no help! Boot says it cannot find a kernel... surely there must be some kind of recovery process even if nothing has been backed up. Surely FreeBSD must be have something that functions like certain software does on MS ? I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. TIA. PJ -- Hervé Kempf: Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme. - Phil Jourdan --- p...@ptahhotep.com http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
On 7/30/09, PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? The /usr files should be ok but how to access? I get errors that the file system is full and I have no idea of how to deal with the boot up - the help message is no help! Boot says it cannot find a kernel... surely there must be some kind of recovery process even if nothing has been backed up. Surely FreeBSD must be have something that functions like certain software does on MS ? I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. TIA. PJ That's when the livefs comes to the rescue -- if you cannot boot at all Otherwise single-user boot works most of the time ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 01:40:58PM -0400, PJ wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? Do you mean the filesystem's superblock? Or the slice table (partitions in PC parlance) or the freebsd partitions (disk labels)? Because the boot sector is not part of any filesystem. The best way to try repairs is to make a complete copy of the partition with dd(1), and experiment on the copy. That way you cannot further screw up the original! To check a UFS filesystem, use fsck_ffs(8). First, try if the preen option '-p' is sufficient to fix the filesystem. If the superblock is corrupt, try using the -b option to specify an alternate superblock. See the manual page. The /usr files should be ok but how to access? Use fsck_ffs to try and repair the filesystem. I get errors that the file system is full and I have no idea of how to deal with the boot up - the help message is no help! Boot says it cannot find a kernel... surely there must be some kind of recovery process even if nothing has been backed up. Surely FreeBSD must be have something that functions like certain software does on MS ? Maybe the sleuth kit (sysutils/sleuthkit) can help you recover files. I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. Make regular backups. Especially before big upgrades. Roland -- 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) pgpmhLAxjoNfi.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: how to boot or access problem file system
Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 01:40:58PM -0400, PJ wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? Do you mean the filesystem's superblock? Or the slice table (partitions in PC parlance) or the freebsd partitions (disk labels)? Because the boot sector is not part of any filesystem. The best way to try repairs is to make a complete copy of the partition with dd(1), and experiment on the copy. That way you cannot further screw up the original! To check a UFS filesystem, use fsck_ffs(8). First, try if the preen option '-p' is sufficient to fix the filesystem. If the superblock is corrupt, try using the -b option to specify an alternate superblock. See the manual page. The /usr files should be ok but how to access? Use fsck_ffs to try and repair the filesystem. how can I use it if I can't boot or access the file system? I get errors that the file system is full and I have no idea of how to deal with the boot up - the help message is no help! Boot says it cannot find a kernel... surely there must be some kind of recovery process even if nothing has been backed up. Surely FreeBSD must be have something that functions like certain software does on MS ? Maybe the sleuth kit (sysutils/sleuthkit) can help you recover files. How would that be? I can't access the disk or the file system and I can't boot I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. Make regular backups. Especially before big upgrades. Maybe the real problem is that the manual is too screwed up (why are there so many problems being brought up on the mailing lists? we can't all be that stupid.) Roland -- Hervé Kempf: Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme. - Phil Jourdan --- p...@ptahhotep.com http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
Tim Judd wrote: On 7/30/09, PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? The /usr files should be ok but how to access? I get errors that the file system is full and I have no idea of how to deal with the boot up - the help message is no help! Boot says it cannot find a kernel... surely there must be some kind of recovery process even if nothing has been backed up. Surely FreeBSD must be have something that functions like certain software does on MS ? I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. TIA. PJ That's when the livefs comes to the rescue -- if you cannot boot at all Otherwise single-user boot works most of the time how does livefs come into the picture here? What is it? How do you use it? Single-user? if the kernel is not accessible, how do I boot? -- Hervé Kempf: Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme. - Phil Jourdan --- p...@ptahhotep.com http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
PJ wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? Usually there are more than 1 file system present. The MBR will have no bearing on any other than the one you need to boot from, and this is usually the / - aka root. Having a screwed up MBR will only prevent a boot and generally shouldn't change or cause any corruption to the other file systems. Caveat being what occurred that produced the situation in the first place. Look in here for a list of .iso files: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/7.2/ There are the boot-only and a livefs images available. The boot-only would be used for a network installation. What you want is the livefs image. Download and burn to a CD. The /usr files should be ok but how to access? Boot from the LiveFS CD. There will be a very basic minimum system present that contains some tools which may be useful. Once booted you should be able to mount the problematic file systems from the hard disk and possibly make repairs. It is probably best to utilize the same version as the OS you are trying to repair. I get errors that the file system is full and I have no idea of how to deal with the boot up - the help message is no help! It may be that you need to locate something you can delete so that the file system is now un-full. Boot says it cannot find a kernel... surely there must be some kind of recovery process even if nothing has been backed up. There are recovery processes available, but mostly this involves a knowledgeable sysadmin and not some magic bullet automated software. This skill requires an in-depth understanding of how the OS functions, and this can take a while to learn. Along with making some mistakes along the way to have something with which to practice on. :-) Surely FreeBSD must be have something that functions like certain software does on MS ? Why would FreeBSD be concerned with being like $MS? Going down this path is a waste of time. Forget the $MS and learn the FreeBSD. The learning curve is initially very steep if all you've ever known is $MS, but if you plug away at it you will at some point crest the hill and have a light bulb goes on moment where all of the sudden a lot of disparate material solidifies into something cohesive. I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. TIA. PJ Not knowing more details can lead to dangerous advice in this kind of situation. It may be something as simple as boot0cfg -B -d 0 is all you need. Blindly giving and following such advice without knowing all the circumstances may quickly escalate into disaster. An example would be something like you are triple booting 3 different OS's with Grub and us not knowing that. You should probably read the man pages for fdisk, disklabel, and boot0cfg and see/learn what particular command will extricate you from the situation you are presently more familiar with than us. Get it wrong and it will only get worse. But there are at least 3 ways present in those docs alone which can be used to write out a new MBR. -Mike ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
Michael Powell wrote: PJ wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? Usually there are more than 1 file system present. The MBR will have no bearing on any other than the one you need to boot from, and this is usually the / - aka root. Having a screwed up MBR will only prevent a boot and generally shouldn't change or cause any corruption to the other file systems. Caveat being what occurred that produced the situation in the first place. Look in here for a list of .iso files: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/7.2/ There are the boot-only and a livefs images available. The boot-only would be used for a network installation. What you want is the livefs image. Download and burn to a CD. The /usr files should be ok but how to access? Boot from the LiveFS CD. There will be a very basic minimum system present that contains some tools which may be useful. Once booted you should be able to mount the problematic file systems from the hard disk and possibly make repairs. It is probably best to utilize the same version as the OS you are trying to repair. I get errors that the file system is full and I have no idea of how to deal with the boot up - the help message is no help! It may be that you need to locate something you can delete so that the file system is now un-full. Boot says it cannot find a kernel... surely there must be some kind of recovery process even if nothing has been backed up. There are recovery processes available, but mostly this involves a knowledgeable sysadmin and not some magic bullet automated software. This skill requires an in-depth understanding of how the OS functions, and this can take a while to learn. Along with making some mistakes along the way to have something with which to practice on. :-) Surely FreeBSD must be have something that functions like certain software does on MS ? Why would FreeBSD be concerned with being like $MS? Going down this path is a waste of time. Forget the $MS and learn the FreeBSD. The learning curve is initially very steep if all you've ever known is $MS, but if you plug away at it you will at some point crest the hill and have a light bulb goes on moment where all of the sudden a lot of disparate material solidifies into something cohesive. I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. TIA. PJ Not knowing more details can lead to dangerous advice in this kind of situation. It may be something as simple as boot0cfg -B -d 0 is all you need. Blindly giving and following such advice without knowing all the circumstances may quickly escalate into disaster. An example would be something like you are triple booting 3 different OS's with Grub and us not knowing that. You should probably read the man pages for fdisk, disklabel, and boot0cfg and see/learn what particular command will extricate you from the situation you are presently more familiar with than us. Get it wrong and it will only get worse. But there are at least 3 ways present in those docs alone which can be used to write out a new MBR. -Mike ___ 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 Mike, I am not particularly interested in becoming a guru on FreeBSD. I just want to be able to use it productively... by that I do not mean make money, but get something achieved in the way of programming stuff for my own website etc. Having to go back to school to understand all the stuff about FBSD is a bit overkill. The real problem is that the instructions for upgrading and updating trip all over themselves and confuse the shit out of most of us who are not FBSD experts. Funny, that there are so many posts and wueries on google to fix things on FreeBSD. I found one that was very clear and the upgrade worked... yet there is something wrong with the upgrade since I cannot get X to recognize a puny little mouse. And consequently I have no idea if Firefox is working or if flashplayer is working or acroread9 or anything for that matter. And there are no explanations that are readily evident on what to use, when, how and where to use the different programs line the linux emulation... there are several and then there are sever flavors of flshplayer (flashplayer9, linux-f8-flashplayer9, and a couple more relating to linux f10 - those ridiculous descriptions about the ports are leally a waste of time - why not just say do some heavy research before using any of this stuff I do appreciate the help you are offering as well as all the other guys who take time out to help us. It sounds, from what you are telling
Re: how to boot or access problem file system
--On Thursday, July 30, 2009 14:45:46 -0500 PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca wrote: Mike, I am not particularly interested in becoming a guru on FreeBSD. I just want to be able to use it productively... by that I do not mean make money, but get something achieved in the way of programming stuff for my own website etc. Having to go back to school to understand all the stuff about FBSD is a bit overkill. The real problem is that the instructions for upgrading and updating trip all over themselves and confuse the shit out of most of us who are not FBSD experts. Funny, that there are so many posts and wueries on google to fix things on FreeBSD. I found one that was very clear and the upgrade worked... yet there is something wrong with the upgrade since I cannot get X to recognize a puny little mouse. You need to run both dbus and hal if you want Xorg to detect your mouse and keyboard. That requires you to add two lines to /etc/rc.conf; hald_enable=YES and dbus_enable=YES. And consequently I have no idea if Firefox is working or if flashplayer is working or acroread9 or anything for that matter. If you're doing website development and you need to have flash working you need to find another OS. Flash on FreeBSD is unreliable at best. Move to Ubuntu or CentOS or Gentoo or some other Linux flavor that can run Flash natively. And there are no explanations that are readily evident on what to use, when, how and where to use the different programs line the linux emulation... No matter what you use, there is going to be a learning curve. I've just started using Vista Enterprise, and it drives me nuts. Things aren't where I'm used to them being, and I can't find what I used to know was there. And I was editing the registry in Windows 3.1 when many people didn't even know there was a registry. All OSes take time to learn, some more than others. FreeBSD is on the steeper side of the learning curve table, so maybe you shouldn't invest the time. Life is too short to be constantly frustrated. I do appreciate the help you are offering as well as all the other guys who take time out to help us. It sounds, from what you are telling me, like it may be possible to do something with my problem computer... will try. If you are willing to invest the time, FreeBSD can be a great OS to use. But nobody but you can run your box, and no amount of help can overcome an unwillingness to take the time to learn. That's not an indictment of you. Your priorities are not others' priorities. But don't keep banging your head against the FreeBSD wall if you just want to get an OS up and running and using Flash. Hell, buy a Mac. Then you'll have the best of both worlds. -- Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions are my own and not those of my employer. *** It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use of reason as to administer medication to the dead. Thomas Jefferson ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
Paul Schmehl wrote: --On Thursday, July 30, 2009 14:45:46 -0500 PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca wrote: Mike, I am not particularly interested in becoming a guru on FreeBSD. I just want to be able to use it productively... by that I do not mean make money, but get something achieved in the way of programming stuff for my own website etc. Having to go back to school to understand all the stuff about FBSD is a bit overkill. The real problem is that the instructions for upgrading and updating trip all over themselves and confuse the shit out of most of us who are not FBSD experts. Funny, that there are so many posts and wueries on google to fix things on FreeBSD. I found one that was very clear and the upgrade worked... yet there is something wrong with the upgrade since I cannot get X to recognize a puny little mouse. You need to run both dbus and hal if you want Xorg to detect your mouse and keyboard. That requires you to add two lines to /etc/rc.conf; hald_enable=YES and dbus_enable=YES. And consequently I have no idea if Firefox is working or if flashplayer is working or acroread9 or anything for that matter. If you're doing website development and you need to have flash working you need to find another OS. Flash on FreeBSD is unreliable at best. Move to Ubuntu or CentOS or Gentoo or some other Linux flavor that can run Flash natively. And there are no explanations that are readily evident on what to use, when, how and where to use the different programs line the linux emulation... No matter what you use, there is going to be a learning curve. I've just started using Vista Enterprise, and it drives me nuts. Things aren't where I'm used to them being, and I can't find what I used to know was there. And I was editing the registry in Windows 3.1 when many people didn't even know there was a registry. All OSes take time to learn, some more than others. FreeBSD is on the steeper side of the learning curve table, so maybe you shouldn't invest the time. Life is too short to be constantly frustrated. I do appreciate the help you are offering as well as all the other guys who take time out to help us. It sounds, from what you are telling me, like it may be possible to do something with my problem computer... will try. If you are willing to invest the time, FreeBSD can be a great OS to use. But nobody but you can run your box, and no amount of help can overcome an unwillingness to take the time to learn. That's not an indictment of you. Your priorities are not others' priorities. But don't keep banging your head against the FreeBSD wall if you just want to get an OS up and running and using Flash. Hell, buy a Mac. Then you'll have the best of both worlds. No way. But isn't it strange that it used to be pretty simple to upgrade and update. But recently, I notice that communication between the developers and users (or is it the manual page writers) are getting far away from the realities of user/operational needs. Oh, what's the sense of beating a dead horse, mechanics will never be writers... let's not kid ourselves. -- Hervé Kempf: Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme. - Phil Jourdan --- p...@ptahhotep.com http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
On 7/30/09, PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca wrote: Tim Judd wrote: On 7/30/09, PJ af.gour...@videotron.ca wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? The /usr files should be ok but how to access? I get errors that the file system is full and I have no idea of how to deal with the boot up - the help message is no help! Boot says it cannot find a kernel... surely there must be some kind of recovery process even if nothing has been backed up. Surely FreeBSD must be have something that functions like certain software does on MS ? I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. TIA. PJ That's when the livefs comes to the rescue -- if you cannot boot at all Otherwise single-user boot works most of the time how does livefs come into the picture here? What is it? How do you use it? Single-user? if the kernel is not accessible, how do I boot? It's another ISO image you burn to CD and boot. It's a live filesystem off CD. Since it doesn't depend on your hard drive's filesystem - it can boot to BSD, and give you a emergency repair environment to do your work (including mounting your HDD partitions) and then restart with the hard drive. Windows still hasn't got that down, yet. ___ 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: how to boot or access problem file system
On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 03:20:55PM -0400, PJ wrote: Roland Smith wrote: On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 01:40:58PM -0400, PJ wrote: What can be done to access a file system that seems to have the boot sector screwed up? I forgot to mention that your boot sector is fine. If it were screwed up, you wouldn't get to the boot prompt. Since the boot code cannot locate your kernel, there are several things that could have gone wrong. See below. snip The /usr files should be ok but how to access? Use fsck_ffs to try and repair the filesystem. how can I use it if I can't boot or access the file system? Use a livefs cd or use the Fixit option in the main menu of sysinstall on an install disk. That should get you a shell where you can run fsck_ffs on your disk partitions. If you have booted from CD, list the disk devices with e.g. 'ls /dev/ad*'. If you have SCSI drives, use 'da' instead of 'ad'. What does that command list? On my machine, I'll get something like this: /dev/ad4 /dev/ad4s1d /dev/ad6 /dev/ad6s1d /dev/ad4s1 /dev/ad4s1e /dev/ad6s1 /dev/ad6s1e /dev/ad4s1a /dev/ad4s1f /dev/ad6s1a /dev/ad6s1f /dev/ad4s1b /dev/ad4s1g /dev/ad6s1b /dev/ad6s1g /dev/ad4s1c /dev/ad4s1g.eli /dev/ad6s1c /dev/ad6s1g.eli If you only see e.g. /dev/ad4 and /dev/ad6, your slice table has been overwritten (with fdisk) and your data is lost. If you see /dev/ad4s1 but not /dev/ad4s1a-g, the BSD partitions have been removed and your data is lost as well. Since there is only one slice on both ad4 and ad6 (otherwise you'd see /dev/ad4s2x) The next step is to examine the disk labels: bsdlabel /dev/ad4s1 # /dev/ad4s1: 8 partitions: #size offsetfstype [fsize bsize bps/cpg] a: 1024000 164.2BSD 2048 16384 64008 b: 16777216 1024016 swap c: 9767680020unused0 0 # raw part, don't edit d: 4194304 178012324.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 e: 104857600 219955364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 f: 41943040 1268531364.2BSD 2048 16384 28528 g: 807971826 1687961764.2BSD 2048 16384 0 This tells us that the a, d, e, f and g partition are carrying a BSD filesystem, and should be checked with fsck_ffs. Try these steps and report back what you find. I don't have a problem with irrecoverable files, I would just finally understand how things work and what can be done on FBSD. Make regular backups. Especially before big upgrades. Maybe the real problem is that the manual is too screwed up (why are there so many problems being brought up on the mailing lists? we can't all be that stupid.) It is a mailing list for questions. Ipso facto you'll see questions and problems on this list. People who are not having problems will not be posting very much. :-) As to the handbook, this is by necessity written by people who are knowledgeable on the subject they write on. Unfortunately this sometimes lead to really basic steps/assumptions being skipped because they are self-evident for the writer. If you gain enough knowledge about a subject it becomes really hard to write for people new to the system because you've internalized a lot of stuff by then. If you have specific questions about parts of the handbook, ask. Roland -- 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) pgp6XvLBCQx1m.pgp Description: PGP signature
