Rasputin wrote:
>
> Is there a decent walkthrough anywhere on the Net for using
> disklabel, fdisk , etc - along with an explanation of what a,c etc all
> mean?
>
> man disklabel etc all assume you know what those letters mean.
> I know c is the whole partition, but that's it.
c = entire disk
a = root
b = swap
d = ??? I don't know; it's never used
e+ = other partitions.
BTW, does anybody know *why* BSD uses such a bizarre scheme?
>
> I need to know because:
>
> <PHYSICAL><-----EXTENDED-----><------PHYSICAL------------>
>
> ad0s1 ad0s5 ad0s6 ad0s3
> <-winXX--><-msdos-><Slackware><-------BSD---------------->
> | 2Gb | 1.5Gb | 2Gb | / | swap | /usr | /var |
> ^
> |
> I have an old Slackware partition
> that has FUBARed itself so throuoghly that it can't even be mounted.
This isn't really disklabel at all; it's the low-level format, which is
why I can help.
>
> (Actually there were about 3 partitions in there, but they're lost now)
> It's in the second logical partition in an extended DOS partition on
> my second physical partition (dev/ad0s6 in FreeBSD)
> There's a Gb of data in ad0s5 (which is fine).
FreeBSD doesn't know from extended partitions from what I can see. Does
your FreeBSD actually see od0s5/ad0s6? 'Cause mine never seemed to
found; I used PartitionMagic to convert my DOS partition from logical to
primary largely to deal with this.
Was I missing a big clue?
Try typing "fdisk /dev/ad0" to get an idea of how FreeBSD really sees
your disk.
Anyway, as far as *I* am aware what you've really got is:
ad0s1 - first partition = winXx
ad0s2 - second partiion = extended
ad0s3 = third partition = BSD
The disklabel program is concerned only with dividing up ad0s3.
You can make a file system on ad0s2 and it certianly ought not overlap
anything, but run "fdisk" to be sure things are really confused.
If you can access ad0s5/ad0s6, please let me know. It would be news to
me!
(And what release are you running, BTW?)
> BSD dumps ad0s6 altogether when it boots; and fdisk from a
> boot CD says something along the lines of:
> "Second slice extended past end of disk" or similar
> (box is offline today, so I can't check right now)
> This concerns me; if I try to fdisk/newfs ad0s2 (assuming I
> could see it), I risk losing ad0s3, which is the only bit of the disk
> I really want to keep.
>
> I assume/hope that if I blow away the extended partition
> entirely, I can just recreate it.
> But I don't really know what it's called?
> Is it ad0s2?
> And won't I need to let BSD know where / has moved to?
>
> What I'd really like is some advice from anyone who knows this stuff.
> But I'm surprised the Handbook doesn't go into a lot of detail on this,
> since dual-boot systems are fairly common amongst cheapskates like me.
>
> If I can free up that 2Gb, maybe I'll have space for the docproj port... :)
> --
> Rasputin
> Jack of All Trades :: Master of Nuns
>
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