James Hartley wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 1:21 AM, kim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >  Just out of interest, what happens when you delete the 'c' 
> partition? I
> >  understood it deleted the drive spec but is this 
> irreversible? can you
> >  low level format the drive or repopulate the information 
> some other way,
> >  or with some other format software?
> 
> The definitive answer to your question is to try & see.  Although I
> have been curious about this at times, I haven't been so curious to
> invest the time to experiment.
> 
> As for conjecture, I would doubt that there is any physical harm in
> deleting *all* partitions, but I doubt if there are any tools which
> would reverse the result.  I suspect one would end up having to
> reinstall, but again, this is only a guess.
> 
> Jim

on an old installation (old computer, old OBSD)

# disklabel -E wd0
> d c
You may not delete the 'c' partition.  The 'c' partition must exist and
should span the entire disk.  By default it is of type 'unused' and so
does not take up any space.
> p
...
  c: 488397168        0    unused        0     0        # (Cyl.    0 -
484520)
...

> m
partition to modify: [] c
FS type: [unused]
offset: [0] 3
The OpenBSD portion of the disk starts at sector 63, you tried to add a
partition at 3.  You can use the 'b' command to change the size of the
OpenBSD portion.
offset: [0] 66
size: [488397168]
> w

At this point, something is surely wrecked, HOWEVER
I can log in again and disklabel now gives

16 partitions:
#        size   offset    fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:   307377       63    4.2BSD     2048 16384   304   # (Cyl.    0*- 304)
  b:   716688   307440      swap                        # (Cyl.  305 - 1015)
  c: 488397168       66    unused        0     0        # (Cyl.    0*-
484521*)
  d:  3072384  1024128    4.2BSD     2048 16384   328   # (Cyl. 1016 - 4063)
  e:  1024128  4096512    4.2BSD     2048 16384   328   # (Cyl. 4064 - 5079)
  f: 51200352  5120640    4.2BSD     2048 16384   328   # (Cyl. 5080 -
55873)
  g:  1024128 56320992    4.2BSD     2048 16384   328   # (Cyl. 55874 -
56889)
  h: 431046945 57345120    4.2BSD     2048 16384   328  # (Cyl. 56890 -
484515*)
disklabel: partition c: partition extends past end of unit

Not foolproof, but more forgiving that I would expect.

Ah well.
Time to wipe and reinstall something more like -current.
Nothing quite like the feeling of wiping the disk you are running on;)

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