Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
Glendon Gross: >Is there anyone interested in rewriting that "fake" partition table, Please look at the thread with the same topic three weeks ago. I stated that it wouldn't be possible because there is a fundamental disagreement: BIOS standard demands that the first *sector* always remains reserved. However DD mode only reserves the first *block* and starts with the actual contents at the second block. This (intentionally) violates BIOS standards. Though many BIOSsen will happily accept it, some will get picky and refuse to boot a DD disk due to standards violation. If you would leave the first *sector* reserved with DD mode, you are basically left with the layout of non-DD mode, so this is pointless. >or is that requirement satisfied by the non-dedicated format? Exactly. Non-DD follows the BIOS standards, so it will serve you fine, at the "expense" of losing some few kB of disk space. >it >would be aesthetically more pleasing to be able to use the >dedicated format. Fully agree. However there are things in the BIOS architecture that don't care about aesthetics. After all, this is the PC world. Helge To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
Is there anyone interested in rewriting that "fake" partition table, or is that requirement satisfied by the non-dedicated format? I actually like sysinstall, now that I am used to it, but it would be aesthetically more pleasing to be able to use the dedicated format. I am curious if there could be some improvement to that "fake" partition table so it would boot from any BIOS, even if it means we have to write some "proprietary" signatures there. Is it possible to modify it so it will trick the BIOS's that are currently failing to boot? On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Greg Lehey wrote: > On Friday, 15 December 2000 at 2:20:40 -0500, Mike Nowlin wrote: > > > >> Does that mean that such BIOS's are proprietary in the sense that they > >> don't recognize the dedicated format? > > > > There are times when the politically-correct of the world use the term > > "proprietary" when they actually mean "dumb" or "really badly > > designed". But yes, that's what it means... :) > > To be fair, the dedicated fake partition table format is a hack. It's > too difficult to figure out what the real geometry is, so it invents > one which should "do the job". Some BIOSes check the table and find > it wanting. It's a grey area. > > Greg > -- > Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP public key > See complete headers for address and phone numbers > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
On Friday, 15 December 2000 at 2:20:40 -0500, Mike Nowlin wrote: > >> Does that mean that such BIOS's are proprietary in the sense that they >> don't recognize the dedicated format? > > There are times when the politically-correct of the world use the term > "proprietary" when they actually mean "dumb" or "really badly > designed". But yes, that's what it means... :) To be fair, the dedicated fake partition table format is a hack. It's too difficult to figure out what the real geometry is, so it invents one which should "do the job". Some BIOSes check the table and find it wanting. It's a grey area. Greg -- Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
> Does that mean that such BIOS's are proprietary in the sense that they > don't recognize the dedicated format? There are times when the politically-correct of the world use the term "proprietary" when they actually mean "dumb" or "really badly designed". But yes, that's what it means... :) mike To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Glendon Gross writes: : Does that mean that such BIOS's are proprietary in the sense that they : don't recognize the dedicated format? One could say that, however the fake disk label for dedicated disks is a problem. The BIOS shouldn't know about partitions, but many do. There's a older Dell machine at work that I'm fighting over this issue right now :-(. Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
Does that mean that such BIOS's are proprietary in the sense that they don't recognize the dedicated format? On Thu, 14 Dec 2000, Warner Losh wrote: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Glendon Gross >writes: > : Please correct me if I am wrong, but this discussion seems to revolve > : around a problem that results from nonstandard BIOS routines. > > Not so much non-standard bios routines, but rather from BIOSes that > know too much about what Should Be There and reacting Badly when that > isn't the case. > > Warner > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Glendon Gross writes: : Please correct me if I am wrong, but this discussion seems to revolve : around a problem that results from nonstandard BIOS routines. Not so much non-standard bios routines, but rather from BIOSes that know too much about what Should Be There and reacting Badly when that isn't the case. Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
Please correct me if I am wrong, but this discussion seems to revolve around a problem that results from nonstandard BIOS routines. On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, Warner Losh wrote: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Greg Lehey writes: > : > No it isn't bogus. You can't boot off a DD disk on some machines > : > because the MBR is too bogus for the BIOS to cope with. > : > : So you put a Microsoft partition table on the boot disk. That doesn't > : mean you need it on the other disks. > > On some systems, this works. On others it doesn't. Some systems > throw a rod when they see the bogus partition table, even if it isn't > on the primary disk. > > : > The problem with DD is that we put a bogus MBR onto the disk. All > : > that is necessary to fix it would be to put a non-bgous MBR onto the > : > disk. > : > : Right, for those cases where it's needed. More specifically, we need > : to now how non-bogus it needs to be. > > It must describe most/all of the disk. It must allow the BIOS to > figure out the geometry so that the boot loader could read the disk > (note, I say could because it might not be the primary disk, and a > bogus partition could cause the BIOS to lose its brain). > > I think, and I haven't checked this out yet, that we could make the > partition end c/h/s rounded to the end of the cylinder nearest the > real end of the disk. > > Warner > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
> > > > > o The FreeBSD fake DOS partition table does not pass a > > > > > number BIOS-based self-consistency checks (it needs to > ... > > > again, 30 seconds in fdisk fixes this > > > I don't agree with this one. There is a checksum that is not > > valid against the FreeBSD created partition tablem regardless > > of what you do with FreeBSD fdisk. > > Are you saying that there are bioses out there that store the checksum of > the winX MBR and get grumpy if they dont find it? I guess it's > theoretically possible, but I'd not belive it till I saw it... The same > machine wouldn't run dr-dos, linux, os/2, beos, etc. I might understand a > bios being confused about boot1 only using slice 4, or perhaps being > confused that the MBR is _included_ in the only or active partition. It > probably wouldn't be that big of a deal to switch to using slice 1, but I > dont know if this would break other things. I personally haven't seen > bioses that are confused by having a slice that contains the mbr, but that > doesn't mean they dont exist. Just not on the hardware I play > with... And again, it's usually pretty easy to tell if your hadware > dislikes dedicated installs. If it works the first time, the system isn't > going to mysteriously stop working because of it later... It's a checksum. They include it in the "garbage" data n the area immediately following the DOS partition table. This means that they can just add their stuff in (_checksum_, not CRC) and balace the books, the same way the AA55 signature and everything before it is required to checksum to zero. > > I have yet to see a reasonable justification as to why a DOS > > partition table and MBR (or boot manager) causes any problems > > that can't be overcome. > > So, aparently asthetics mean nothing to you? You mean, if I have to choose between "it's pretty" and "it always works", do I cop out and choose "it always works"? ... > I personally get embarrassed by ugly code and kludges. I have > yet to see you 'refute', as you say later in your mail, my > arguments in another posting for the asthetic reasons that > people might have. I think that if you have a sense of aesthetics in this area, you would probably not be running on PC hardware. 8-). I look at the PC hardware, and the requirements it makes of the software that runs on it, as a quaint Swiss Chalet architecture. Now you have this modern family who is moving into the chalet they just bought, and they need another room because their family is really too big for a Swiss Chalet architecture building. When they add this room, should the home owners association force the addition to be in the same style as the rest of the chalet? Or should it let the family put up an addition using modern industrial cinderblock architecture? > Aparently the comleliness of the solution to a problem provides > no 'reasonable justification' to you. And really, I guess it's > no big deal. I dont have a neatness fetish for my own code, > but I know people who do. However, peoples sense of 'doing > things the right way' is a valid reason to keep support for this > in the code... On the contrary, all other things being equal, elegance should be the determining factor, IMO. But there is a reason that Frank LLoyd Wright never designed additions to houses, only whole ones: if you are adding to something that already exists, aesthetics _demands_ that you constrain your soloution to one that fits with the existing system of constraints already in place. In its own way, using DOS partition tables _is_ elegant. It fits with the existing system; it ensures that things work as they are supposed to; it eliminates an entire class of support problems; it enables the use of an entire class of tools which can not otherwise be used; it makes knowledge of the system layout more standard, and therefore renders skills more transferrable and more marketable; it reduces the amount of code needed to deal with variant installations; it makes FreeBSD more accessible to new users. All of these things are good things. If you are partivcularly bigoted against ideas inherited from Microsoft, too bad. If your complaint is about the antiquated C/H/S values, well, I will remind you that there is a 32 bit sector offset field, which has been filled out by DOS fdisk since after DOS 2.11, which you can (and should) use instead. > I have no problem with making this less encouraged for newbies > to try, for making it a bit harder to do inintial installs in dedicated > mode. What I do have a problem with are people (not necessarily you, I'm > to lazy to go back and re-read the whole thread again...) that seem to > want to remove the ability to have this work even if you know what you're > doing... You can always do this with your own tools. The question is whether it should be allowed in sysinstall. So far, it has been nothing but trouble. I think the accessibility to new users is probably the number one consid
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
On Thu, Nov 23, 2000 at 06:43:33AM +0100, Cyrille Lefevre wrote: > can someone remember me the problem w/ DD ? Geez, we've just had a 30 message thread that stated many times the problem with dang.ded. drives. > well, I don't have tested anything since I don't have any free drive to burn, > but the spirit is here, no ? Use a vn(4) device as your "disk". You can then try things to your hearts content. -- -- David ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) GNU is Not Unix / Linux Is Not UniX To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Has it occured to you that perhaps there are people that really, really > want DD? can someone remember me the problem w/ DD ? I guess that DD a drive is not a problem if done w/in the state of the art (or something like that). - what about to fdisk the destination drive w/ the same following values, Supply a decimal value for "sysid (165=FreeBSD)" [165] 165 Supply a decimal value for "start" [63] 0 Supply a decimal value for "size" [6506262] to make sure that the partition table is "clean" since fdisk recalculates the good parameters for begin/end CHS. - backup this label using dd. - dd your drive - restore the backuped label - disklabel -B to reinstall boot1 which don't override the partition table. well, I don't have tested anything since I don't have any free drive to burn, but the spirit is here, no ? Cyrille. -- home: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] work: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
On 20 Nov, Mike Smith wrote: >> Let me state this one more time loudly for those calling themselves boot >> code experts. THE PARTITION TABLE IN THE MBR IS NOT DEALT WITH BY THE BIOS, >> BIOSES THAT TRY TO MAKE HEADS OR TALES OF PARTITION TABLES ARE TECHNICALLY >> BROKEN AND VIOLATE IBM AT COMPATIBILITY. If you doubt this go read about >> BIOS service 19H, IPL load. > > It doesn't matter how loudly you shout, or what exactly you stuff in your > ears. The fact is that this code exists, is part of the de-facto > platform standard, and has to be dealt with as such. > > You are welcome to continue to dual-boot FreeBSD and PC-DOS 2.0. In the > meantime, the rest of us are living in the real world, and dealing with > real-world problems. Please let us get on with what has to be done. > Thankyou. > Has it occured to you that perhaps there are people that really, really want DD? To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dangerously Dedicated
On 20 Nov, Chad R. Larson wrote: > As I recall, Rodney W. Grimes wrote: >> The original IBM AT spec could give a rats ass about a partition >> table, all that it cares about is the boot block signature (magic >> 0xAA55). It is the MBR that knows what a partition table is and how >> to deal with it. The original spec says if there is a valid >> signature, load the code and jump to it passing the drive number in >> reg dl so that the boot code knows where it was loaded from. It was >> up to the MBR to decide what to do from then on. > > I think earlier in this thread was a reference to a document > somewhat later than the BIOS code shipped with an AT. > > Do we want to start a new thread on what exactly =is= the > authoritative documentation for PC architecture? > > The real issue is FreeBSD has to be able to boot on the hardware > that's in the stores. Who's wrong, though interesting, doesn't > matter. > I trimmed the CC line. It was getting a bit long. As per the spec relating to this. There is definitive information out there, That is how HD Mfgs are able to draw up new ATA specs. Most of the issue regarding this, in your outline are correct. In addition, the partition table, as has been, suggested, was not important to the IBM spec. However, many aftermarket vendors, especially the people that wrote drivers for Seagate, required the table to be in place. So, the table is important for that reason. In addition, many WinX and DOS vendors expect that some sort of table will be there. The other missing item is the magic number and a correct cksum for the block. The checksum is part of the spec and is usually written in to many install tools. However, even on this point many BIOS Mfgs ignore the cksums and just boot the system. That is, the load the code in the MBR and pass the instruction pointer to that code. Hence, even in some (now) rare cases the cksum is important. If I've mis-stated some parts, someone will correct me. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dangerously Dedicated
Chad R. Larson: >I think earlier in this thread was a reference to a document somewhat >later than the BIOS code shipped with an AT. Which probably makes some sense as FreeBSD won't run on a plain IBM AT box anyway... >Do we want to start a new thread on what exactly =is= the authoritative >documentation for PC architecture? > >The real issue is FreeBSD has to be able to boot on the hardware that's >in the stores. Having abandoned my i486 Overdrive box just a week ago in favor of a decent 166 MHz (gee!) Pentium CPU, I'd like to claim that FreeBSD should be able to boot on hardware that's in the field rather than in the stores. That's definitely the bigger number of variants. Helge To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dangerously Dedicated
Hi Chad, good summary. Only one remark and two additions: > To summarize the summary: The problem comes from the fact that a > PC-BIOS is permitted to insist on an MBR on each drive, and that the > slices in that MBR align on certain boundries whereas FreeBSD > doesn't care about such sillyness but has to use the BIOS to get > launched. I don´t think they do it for their fun and our work to be harder, but as a workaround for other problems the BIOS developers face. So it´s not silly, but a consequence of the PC architecture being defined in a suboptimal fashion. > Simple solution? Don't use DD. > > Slightly less simple? Don't use DD on drives that are in any way > involved with the boot process, but go ahead on data-only drives. As some stated here, the bogus data in a dd-MBR can break booting even on non-boot-disks (i.e. your data-only drives). The mere presence will be tested, detected as faulty and therefore the process stops before anything can be done on user side. For the IA64 no dd will work at all, as a valid MBR is a strict requirement. Ciao Siegbert To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dangerously Dedicated
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Brandon Fosdick writes: > : Using what I consider to be a artifact of another operating system > : on a machine that doesn't use that OS seems silly to me. Unless, of > : course, that artifact has some useful feature(s) or > : functionality. If it does, I'm all ears. > > But it isn't an artifact of another OS. It is an artifact of the > BIOS. Read other email. The partition table is not an aftifact of the BIOS, it is an actifact of PC-DOS's MBR, and hence forth MS's MBR code. > : I'm a little confused here. Why are slices demanded by the Intel > : arhictecture? > > The BIOS demands that they are there. At least some modern BIOSes > don't do well when they aren't there. Any BIOS that demands they are there is broken and violating IBM AT compatibility. Very few bioses actually have problems if they are not there, just so long as 0xaa55 is there and the code in the sector runs correctly. > > It is the PC-AT architecture to be more specific. No, it is not, see other email. > : We've been successfully using DD mode for years now, if slices are "demanded" > : what kind of voodoo have we been using? > > The problem is the bogus MBR that the DD writes confuses some BIOSes > and causes your disks to be non-bootable. This is true. It is the _BOGUS_ mbr that is giving those bioses that violate the specs and try to parse the partition table. If you use a _VALID_ partition table starting at sector 0 these BIOS tend to work correctly with a dangeriously dedicated disk. > > : Is there some way or ways in which the 4-slot table is superior to DD-mode? > > The 4 slot table already is there in DD mode. It just happens to > contain completely bogus data. And that is the problem, not the DD mode, it is the bogus data. Usually just adjusting the end address of the bogus data to be cylinder alligned will fix the non-boot problem on machines with a broken BIOS. -- Rod Grimes - KD7CAX @ CN85sl - (RWG25) [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dangerously Dedicated
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Brandon Fosdick writes: > : So we're going to be stuck with MS style partitions on machines that only run > : FreeBSD? I don't like this idea. > > First, these aren't MS style partitions. They are part of the PC > spec. FreeBSD is lying to the BIOS with the MBR that we put onto the > disk, and that causes problems. Seems people are getting very confused here about what the BIOS cares about and what cares about the partition table, what the specs say and what software is actually doing what. The original IBM AT spec could give a rats ass about a partition table, all that it cares about is the boot block signature (magic 0xAA55). It is the MBR that knows what a partition table is and how to deal with it. The original spec says if there is a valid signature, load the code and jump to it passing the drive number in reg dl so that the boot code knows where it was loaded from. It was up to the MBR to decide what to do from then on. Note that some newer BIOS's have violated the original spec and intent by now looking at the partition table, bad BIOS, bad bad bad BIOS (typically oem's like gateway, compaq, dell, HP). Also note that most current BIOS's actually do follow the original spec and work just fine (Award, and non-oem modified Phoenix). Almost all partitioning tools assume that if there is a boot signature a DOS style partion table exists in the MBR, technically this software is in error. So in summary: a) The BIOS knows about a boot signature and what to do with it, it should not know about a partion table, if it does it is technically broken. b) The MBR knows about partition tables, if it cares about them. c) Software that assumes there is a partition table just becuase there is a boot signature is technically broken, but quite common. > Second, the amount of space wasted is nearly 0 (32k on most IDE disks, > 64k on scsi). The wasted space is exactly 1 track - 1 block. -- Rod Grimes - KD7CAX @ CN85sl - (RWG25) [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dangerously Dedicated
On 19-Nov-00 Brandon Fosdick wrote: > David O'Brien wrote: >> >> On Sun, Nov 19, 2000 at 12:32:16PM -0500, Brandon Fosdick wrote: >> > So we're going to be stuck with MS style partitions on machines that only >> > run >> > FreeBSD? I don't like this idea. >> >> Can you tell why?? Just because it is "MS style partitions"?? > > Using what I consider to be a artifact of another operating system on a > machine > that doesn't use that OS seems silly to me. Unless, of course, that artifact > has > some useful feature(s) or functionality. If it does, I'm all ears. > >> BTW, slices aren't "MS style partitions", but "PC BIOS style partitions". >> As long as people insist on using Intel based computers, slices are >> demanded. Run FreeBSD on an Alpha if you don't like the idea of the PC >> BIOS 4-slot partition table with boundaries on cylinders and MBR. > > I'm a little confused here. Why are slices demanded by the Intel > arhictecture? > We've been successfully using DD mode for years now, if slices are "demanded" > what kind of voodoo have we been using? They are demanded by the BIOS, not the CPU. And we have been using seriously ugly voodoo involving a fake, invalid slice table that relied on certain equations to work out certain ways that violated the de facto standard for the way slices are laid out. As a result, some newer BIOS's choke on a DD disk. This has been discussed to death in the archives, please go read the 10 prior copies of this discussion there. Thank you. This thread should die. -- John Baldwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ PGP Key: http://www.baldwin.cx/~john/pgpkey.asc "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Removal of Disklabel (was: Re: Dangerously Dedicated)
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Mike Smith writes: > > As the PC architecture requires, just use an fdisk partition rather > > than a disklabel slice (slices are what UNIX vendors call them). For > > that matter I'd be happy if we removed disklabel from the picture > > entirely. I think that should be our goal. The architecture requires > > an fdisk label and disklabel is redundant. It seems like a no-brainer > > to me, just remove support for disklabel entirely. Simple and end of > > argument. > > This is painful for lots of other reasons, and the counter-argument is > that this is change for change's sake rather than change to a useful end. Not necessarily. Many people complain about the redundancy of partitions and slices. Let's remove one level as the suggest. As the PC architecture uses fdisk partitions, let's use that. No more arguments. > > We also need a native disk divvying method for platforms that don't have > their own (eg. Alpha). The BSD disklabel serves this purpose well. I can see other arguments for and against this, including using fdisk-only on other architectures too. I considered one argument for and two against my suggestion so status quo it is. If I don't like the decision, can I vote again? :) Regards, Phone: (250)387-8437 Cy Schubert Fax: (250)387-5766 Team Leader, Sun/DEC Team Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Open Systems Group, ITSD, ISTA Province of BC To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
Greg Lehey wrote: > On Sunday, 19 November 2000 at 23:57:25 -0800, David O'Brien wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 20, 2000 at 02:53:04PM +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: > >> > >> If it shows valid partitions, you're using a Microsoft partition table. > > ^ > > Greg, can you read English?? Can you comprehend it?? Are you bind and in > > a write-only mode?? > > For the last time IT IS NOT A MICROSOFT PARTITION TABLE but a PC BIOS > > PARTITION TABLE AND DICTATED BY THE INTEL x86 PLATFORM. THEY ARE ALSO > > REQUIRED BY THE IA-64 PLATFORM. > > > > Why do you *insist* on calling it a "Microsoft partition table"?? > > Hmm. I was going to say "Because it was introduced with Microsoft > 2.0", but I'm no longer so sure. Reading the MS-DOS 2.11 source code, > it seems that they didn't have a partition table at the time. Can > anybody remember when it was introduced? It was introduced with the IBM PC/XT, circa 1982. This would have coincided with MS-DOS 2.0. You didn't find any mention of partition tables in the MS-DOS 2.11 source because the only thing in DOS that deals with partition tables is the fdisk utility. Disk I/O, formatting, booting, etc. is done through the BIOS - the BIOS is where the important partition table code is located. If you want to be specific I guess you could call it an "IBM PC/XT partition table". Other stuff besides Microsoft OS's use the partition table. Just to name a few: BeOS, Linux, QNX, Pick, System Commander. Jim To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Removal of Disklabel (was: Re: Dangerously Dedicated)
> As the PC architecture requires, just use an fdisk partition rather > than a disklabel slice (slices are what UNIX vendors call them). For > that matter I'd be happy if we removed disklabel from the picture > entirely. I think that should be our goal. The architecture requires > an fdisk label and disklabel is redundant. It seems like a no-brainer > to me, just remove support for disklabel entirely. Simple and end of > argument. This is painful for lots of other reasons, and the counter-argument is that this is change for change's sake rather than change to a useful end. We also need a native disk divvying method for platforms that don't have their own (eg. Alpha). The BSD disklabel serves this purpose well. -- ... every activity meets with opposition, everyone who acts has his rivals and unfortunately opponents also. But not because people want to be opponents, rather because the tasks and relationships force people to take different points of view. [Dr. Fritz Todt] V I C T O R Y N O T V E N G E A N C E To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Removal of Disklabel (was: Re: Dangerously Dedicated)
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Warner Losh writes: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Zero Sum writes: > : Does this allow multiple partitions on a zip? > > Yes, but fdisk is awkward to use for editing. How about fdisk -e in similar vein as disklabel -e? As the PC architecture requires, just use an fdisk partition rather than a disklabel slice (slices are what UNIX vendors call them). For that matter I'd be happy if we removed disklabel from the picture entirely. I think that should be our goal. The architecture requires an fdisk label and disklabel is redundant. It seems like a no-brainer to me, just remove support for disklabel entirely. Simple and end of argument. Regards, Phone: (250)387-8437 Cy Schubert Fax: (250)387-5766 Team Leader, Sun/DEC Team Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Open Systems Group, ITSD, ISTA Province of BC To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Greg Lehey writes: > On Sunday, 19 November 2000 at 23:57:25 -0800, David O'Brien wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 20, 2000 at 02:53:04PM +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: > >> > >> If it shows valid partitions, you're using a Microsoft partition table. > > ^ > > Greg, can you read English?? Can you comprehend it?? Are you bind and in > > a write-only mode?? > > For the last time IT IS NOT A MICROSOFT PARTITION TABLE but a PC BIOS > > PARTITION TABLE AND DICTATED BY THE INTEL x86 PLATFORM. THEY ARE ALSO > > REQUIRED BY THE IA-64 PLATFORM. > > > > Why do you *insist* on calling it a "Microsoft partition table"?? > > Hmm. I was going to say "Because it was introduced with Microsoft > 2.0", but I'm no longer so sure. Reading the MS-DOS 2.11 source code, > it seems that they didn't have a partition table at the time. Can > anybody remember when it was introduced? IBM introduced it in the PC-XT. PC-DOS (not the same as MS-DOS) 2.0 wast the operating system shipped with the PC-XT. Regards, Phone: (250)387-8437 Cy Schubert Fax: (250)387-5766 Team Leader, Sun/DEC Team Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Open Systems Group, ITSD, ISTA Province of BC To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dangerously Dedicated
On Sun, 19 Nov 2000, Mike Smith wrote: > > > > Using what I consider to be a artifact of another operating system on a > > > > machine that doesn't use that OS seems silly to me. Unless, of course, > > > > that artifact has some useful feature(s) or functionality. If it does, I'm > > > > all ears. > > > > > > What "you consider" doesn't have much bearing on the situation. As for > > > useful functionality, this has been done to death. It should be enough > > > for you to accept that the platform requires it > > > > Except that it doesn't, as 'dangerously dedicated' mode shows. > > "DD" mode has never worked properly. Ever since it's been in existence, > it's show that a valid slice table is necessary. > > > >, and that a goodly slice > > > of platform-compliant firmware and software will fail in undesirable ways > > > if it's not present. All of which has been explained in excruciating > > > detail before. > > > > Except that the software hasn't always required it previously, and it > > previously did not fail. > > It has, and it previously did fail. > > > Some would call this 'regression', but I suppose others will call it > > 'progress'. > > Some would just call it "making stuff work", which is the whole point of > the exercise. This is a really long thread indeed. Could someone sum it up, and say why the current way isn't good? The sysinstall asks and warns about the "DD" mode, isn't that sufficient? --Roman Shterenzon, UNIX System Administrator and Consultant [ Xpert UNIX Systems Ltd., Herzlia, Israel. Tel: +972-9-9522361 ] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Greg Lehey writes: : I wonder how long the current Microsoft partition table has to live, : anyway? Sooner or later people are going to have to move to LBA : addressing, or disks will get so big that the partition table can't : address them. Then, hopefully, we'll be able to use a more sane : layout. Forever. We've already passed the 8G barrier and there's a bunch of kludges to cope... Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
On 20-Nov-00 Greg Lehey wrote: > OK, the more this thread continues, the more it's looking as if we're > talking about different things. I don't have (much) of an objection > to removing it from sysinstall. If that's all we're talking about, I > don't have any further objections. But I still want to have the > facility in the system. I would prefer it died, but I'm not doing the work ;) > I wonder how long the current Microsoft partition table has to live, > anyway? Sooner or later people are going to have to move to LBA > addressing, or disks will get so big that the partition table can't > address them. Then, hopefully, we'll be able to use a more sane > layout. Hah! You have too much faith in PC designers. It will be another hack of course. --- Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." -- Andrew Tanenbaum To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
On Sunday, 19 November 2000 at 17:50:48 -0700, Warner Losh wrote: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Daniel O'Connor" writes: >> At least remove the option from sysinstall so new users don't get >> stuck with it. > > I strongly support this. It has burned me on several machines. > > I don't think that anyone will remove it from the kernel... OK, the more this thread continues, the more it's looking as if we're talking about different things. I don't have (much) of an objection to removing it from sysinstall. If that's all we're talking about, I don't have any further objections. But I still want to have the facility in the system. I wonder how long the current Microsoft partition table has to live, anyway? Sooner or later people are going to have to move to LBA addressing, or disks will get so big that the partition table can't address them. Then, hopefully, we'll be able to use a more sane layout. Greg -- Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
On Sunday, 19 November 2000 at 17:48:14 -0700, Warner Losh wrote: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Greg Lehey writes: >> They waste space. In most cases, they're not needed. Isn't that >> enough? > > No. Writing in 'C' isn't necesary and wastes space. That, in and of > itself, isn't a reason to not use it. No. Unlike the Microsoft partition tables in dedicated machines, it has advantages that make up for it. But take away my ability to write in assembler and I'll complain too. > But like mike said, it was the ability to create these for the boot > disk that is going away from sysinstall. Not for other disks? Greg -- Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
On Sunday, 19 November 2000 at 18:50:40 -0600, Jim King wrote: > Greg Lehey wrote: > >>> Why is DD ever _needed_? >> >> Because Microsoft partition tables waste space. > > That's a really weak argument, given the price and size of drives > nowadays. It's a matter of principle. Why waste? Greg -- Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP public key See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
Greg Lehey wrote: > > Why is DD ever _needed_? > > Because Microsoft partition tables waste space. That's a really weak argument, given the price and size of drives nowadays. Jim To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Daniel O'Connor" writes: : At least remove the option from sysinstall so new users don't get : stuck with it. I strongly support this. It has burned me on several machines. I don't think that anyone will remove it from the kernel... Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dedicated disks (was: Dangerously Dedicated)
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Greg Lehey writes: : They waste space. In most cases, they're not needed. Isn't that : enough? No. Writing in 'C' isn't necesary and wastes space. That, in and of itself, isn't a reason to not use it. But like mike said, it was the ability to create these for the boot disk that is going away from sysinstall. It causes too many problems on too many machines. Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Dangerously Dedicated
Cy Schubert - ITSD Open Systems Group wrote: > > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "David O'Brien" > writes: > > On Sun, Nov 19, 2000 at 01:55:29PM +0100, Roelof Osinga wrote: > > > Yesterday I installed the 4.2 RC1 in dangerously dedicated > > > mode on a SCSI disk I had lying around. > > > > Why did you choose a "dangerously dedicated" install? "dangerously > > dedicated" might go away in the future (as it doesn't leave space enough > > space for boot0). Unless the normal slice configuration won't work for > > you, there really is no good reason to use "dangerously dedicated". > > If/when dangerously dedicated goes away, will there be special > provision for Zip and Jazz disks? Or, will we need to put an fdisk > style partition table on Zip and Jazz disks, then slice them with > disklabel? So we're going to be stuck with MS style partitions on machines that only run FreeBSD? I don't like this idea. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Dangerously Dedicated
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "David O'Brien" writes: > On Sun, Nov 19, 2000 at 01:55:29PM +0100, Roelof Osinga wrote: > > Yesterday I installed the 4.2 RC1 in dangerously dedicated > > mode on a SCSI disk I had lying around. > > Why did you choose a "dangerously dedicated" install? "dangerously > dedicated" might go away in the future (as it doesn't leave space enough > space for boot0). Unless the normal slice configuration won't work for > you, there really is no good reason to use "dangerously dedicated". If/when dangerously dedicated goes away, will there be special provision for Zip and Jazz disks? Or, will we need to put an fdisk style partition table on Zip and Jazz disks, then slice them with disklabel? Regards, Phone: (250)387-8437 Cy Schubert Fax: (250)387-5766 Team Leader, Sun/DEC Team Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Open Systems Group, ITSD, ISTA Province of BC To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Dangerously dedicated (was Re: Really odd "BTX halted" problem booting FreeBSD on VALinux h)
John Baldwin wrote: > It is kind of semantic. However, on the alpha it is hardly dangerous. Nor > do we fake a MBR on the alpha (which is what makes it dangerous). The alpha > architecture doesn't use MBR's, but the PC arch does. Thus, having a disklabel > on the alpha is normal, having one at the start of a PC disk requires ugly > hacks that break the PC arch, hence the difference. Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying there are potential problems with a "dangerously dedicated" HDD on a PC? I don't use Micros~1 products on any of my machines (acutally, I use nothing but FreeBSD) so I've assumed that there's no reason to do anything other than "dangerously dedicated". Am I wrong is thinking that?? Is this one of those issues where "if it boots, it'll be fine" or is it something that could bite me later?? -Bill To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: No /boot/loader (dangerously dedicated)
On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, R Joseph Wright wrote: > On Tue, Jul 25, 2000 at 03:29:08PM -0600, Fred Clift wrote: > > On Sun, 23 Jul 2000, John Baldwin wrote: > > > > > the geometry of a disk. At the very least, dangerously dedicated mode > > > should specify a valid length for the slice the way that truly dedicated > Would you mind posting that script? I'd like to see it. I'm told that at least for some people that disklabel auto actually does this as recently as 4.0-RELEASE -- I've not had a chance to verify this but I know that using the da driver in 3.4 that this doesn't happen so I do approximately the following (from a C program, that runs from a pxe-like boot-rom booted kernel) note that only the important bits are shown and some pseudo-code for clarity fo = fopen(... ... fprintf(fo, "\n\n\n\ny\n\n\n%d\n\ny\n\ny\n",driveInfo[disk].size); fclose(fo); /* driveInfo[disk].size is the number of sectors/unit as reported by disklabel */ /* and then this is done */ /sbin/fdisk -u da0 < /tmp/fdisk.in This gets the right numbers in the disk label for me to make my Intel ISP2150 boxes to work right (LB440GX+ based I believe). An interesting side note is that if I dd the stock boot0 (with the bogus partition table entry) onto _any_ disk in the system, regardless of what disk is the boot disk, then the machine wont boot at all, not a floppy, not any of the boot devices, nothing. I have to either low-level scsi format the disk or boot from our custom bootrom and nuke it from there... I would say that any machine that can be crippled by having corrupted data on a non-boot disk is by design broken. But, thats another discussion. Fred -- Fred Clift - [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Remember: If brute force doesn't work, you're just not using enough. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: No /boot/loader (dangerously dedicated)
On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Chad R. Larson wrote: > So, I think leaving things the way they have been (letting the > administrator decide at installation time) with regard to > "dangerously dedicated" is the way to go. Perhaps with a little > more verbose warning about "don't try this unless you know what > you're doing" thrown in. [x] let the admin decide -mrh To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: No /boot/loader (dangerously dedicated)
As I recall, John Baldwin wrote: >> Folks, gemoetries are for brain damaged PC operating systems. >> All the box needs to boot is a proper MBR. BIOSes that >> don't boot from a dedicated disk are _broken_. > > No, they are actually smart in that they attempt to use a geometry > that matches the MBR so that you can move disks around. As a result, > when we try to fake it, it confuses them. No, they are for brain-damaged operating systems that are trying to stay compatable with drives built in the Jurassic era when geometry meant something. You and I both know that my Quantum Fireball doesn't have 63 heads, which would imply 32 platters. And never mind that there are a variable number of sectors on a track, depending on if we're talking an outer track or an inner track. Disks should be treated as a linear list of blocks. The rest is just overhead, chicken-waving, backward-compatability magic. The confusion results when two different O/Ss (or the device drivers, or the drive firmware) apply different mapping algorithms to turn a logical block address into a cyl/trk/sec value. What you're saying is that we should follow the existing convention of using values stored in the MBR because it will work with very old hardware, and you could move a drive from a new machine to an old one without leaving the data apparently scrambled. What some of us are saying is we don't care about moving drives around, or legacy hardware. And we know enough to recognize when that can be a problem, and are willing to deal with it. -crl -- Chad R. Larson (CRL15) 602-953-1392 Brother, can you paradigm? [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] DCF, Inc. - 14623 North 49th Place, Scottsdale, Arizona 85254-2207 To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: No /boot/loader (dangerously dedicated)
On Sun, 23-Jul-2000 at 18:57:12 -0400, Adrian Filipi-Martin wrote: > On Sun, 23 Jul 2000, John Baldwin wrote: > > > Patrick M. Hausen wrote: > > > Hello all! > > > > > > Mikhail Teterin wrote: > > > > > > > John Baldwin once stated: > > > > > > > > > Folks, gemoetries are for brain damaged PC operating systems. > > > All the box needs to boot is a proper MBR. BIOSes that > > > don't boot from a dedicated disk are _broken_. > > > > No, they are actually smart in that they attempt to use a geometry that > > matches the MBR so that you can move disks around. As a result, when we > > try to fake it, it confuses them. > > Hmmm. Perhaps my memory is failing me, but I've been using > "dangerously dedicated" disks exclusively for the last few years, because > it was supposed to insulate me from the silliness of BIOS geometry > translation. By insulate, I mean that a disk formatted on one system was > always usable on another even if it decided to have a different geometry > translation. > > I don't shuttle disks around between systems as much as I used to, > but I do recall dedicated mode helping. The only systems that had problem > booting were old and are long gone. I haven't seen or bought anything in > the last three years that won't boot a "dangerously dedicated" disk. Buy a (brandnew) Siemens machine and you will see one :-(. -Andre To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: No /boot/loader (dangerously dedicated)
On Sun, 23-Jul-2000 at 15:33:43 -0400, Mikhail Teterin wrote: > Doug White once stated: > > => Wait! Smarter then what? So it can boot NT and Win98 for some > => weenies, or, actually do something useful (not sure what, though)? > => Why am I to waste space (even so little) "to be compatible with other > => OSes", if there will never be any other OSes? > = > =So you'll be compatible with your BIOS as well. Many BIOSen get really, > =really torqued if your partition table isn't normal. > > I'm yet to see a BIOS, for which this is true. May be, I'm just lucky... You are lucky. Try some Siemens crap with their Phoenix BIOS. They simply say "Read error" if you wanted to use dangerously dedicated mode. I have been bitten by this a lot of times. Normally, I don't use Siemens machines for things other than Win* crap but sometimes I have (had) to. -Andre To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: No /boot/loader (dangerously dedicated)
On Sun, 23 Jul 2000, John Baldwin wrote:
> Patrick M. Hausen wrote:
> > Hello all!
> >
> > Mikhail Teterin wrote:
> >
> > > John Baldwin once stated:
> > >
>
> > Folks, gemoetries are for brain damaged PC operating systems.
> > All the box needs to boot is a proper MBR. BIOSes that
> > don't boot from a dedicated disk are _broken_.
>
> No, they are actually smart in that they attempt to use a geometry that
> matches the MBR so that you can move disks around. As a result, when we
> try to fake it, it confuses them.
Hmmm. Perhaps my memory is failing me, but I've been using
"dangerously dedicated" disks exclusively for the last few years, because
it was supposed to insulate me from the silliness of BIOS geometry
translation. By insulate, I mean that a disk formatted on one system was
always usable on another even if it decided to have a different geometry
translation.
I don't shuttle disks around between systems as much as I used to,
but I do recall dedicated mode helping. The only systems that had problem
booting were old and are long gone. I haven't seen or bought anything in
the last three years that won't boot a "dangerously dedicated" disk.
Is the requirement of an MBR going to apply to removable media like
MO drives? I've only ever gotten these to work in "dangerously dedicated"
mode.
> > I'm really puzzled by this thread, because after years of running FreeBSD
> > I've come to the opinion that "dedicated" is how disks should be partitioned
> > under all circumstances ... I mean, where's the partition table on
> > my Sparc systems running Solaris? Who would care installing MS OSs
> > additionally to FreeBSD on a server providing 24x7 service?
>
> IA-64 mandates a valid MBR. It boots from a special FAT-32 partition
> containing the EFI boot loader. Get used to the idea.
Ugh. Well, I guess FAT-32 is no-longer a MS-DOS thing now, in the
same way that the MBR ins't. So much for the advancement of technology.
Adrian
--
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Re: No /boot/loader (dangerously dedicated)
Thomas Stromberg once stated: => > As for geometry, I tried both with and without "dangerously => > dedicated." My understanding was that if I used the dos partition => > entry method that we should be able to pick up the geometry => > correctly, but should I try the old dos fdisk trick as well? Also, => > would the adaptec setting to translate >1G be affecting this? It's => > on currently, which it is on all my other motherboards of similar => > vintage. => => Your boot disk is now *required* (or will be very very soon) to have => a proper slice table in -CURRENT; dedicated disks are deprecated in => order to get a smarter boot0. Wait! Smarter then what? So it can boot NT and Win98 for some weenies, or, actually do something useful (not sure what, though)? Why am I to waste space (even so little) "to be compatible with other OSes", if there will never be any other OSes? =This would defititely help out at work, as I would no longer get the =question from all of our users during the install "Should I be =dedicated or not?" "Yes, you should" :) -mi To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: "dangerously dedicated"
"Brandon D. Valentine" wrote: > > On i386 machines this is usually something lame like: > NO ROM BASIC > SYSTEM HALTED > despite the fact that no machine has included a ROM BASIC since the last > of the IBM PS/2 386s came out. However most of the BIOSes until *very* > recently still contained code that would check for a ROM BASIC after > searching the entire drive list and try booting from that. Now if only > we could convince them to put that back in except have it look for a > forth interpreter in ROM. Nah, that's the wrong approach. The right approach is for that BIOS *be* written in Forth to begin with. OpenBoot, anyone? :-) -- Daniel C. Sobral(8-DCS) [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them, One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them. To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: "dangerously dedicated"
At 06:30 PM 3/22/00 -0500, Vivek Khera wrote: >I guess I don't see how to use, eg, da0a without being "dangerously >dedicated". When I did my install of FBSD 3.3, the partitioning >process asked if I was sharing the disk or not. I said no, so it took >over the entire disk, but I still get the long-sliced names like >/dev/wd0s1a rather than the /dev/wd0a I'd expect since there is only >one slice on the whole disk. My zip drive uses /dev/da0a after I did >a newfs on it, though. In fstab you could use wd0a rather than wd0s1a. Is it DD, no. Does it work, yes. Is doing so a good idea, not sure. Just dropped the s1 part from every device in fstab and rebooted with no problem. Not having to 'sh MAKEDEV wds1a' when updating /dev (or adding it to MAKEDEV.local) is about the only advantage, but that doesn't help much since vinum is using the slice versions. Maybe it could use the non-slice versions, but don't care to try at this moment. Jeff Mountin - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Systems/Network Administrator FreeBSD - the power to serve To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: "dangerously dedicated"
Doug Barton wrote: > > Warner Losh wrote: > > > I didn't say that using da0a is stupid. I said using dangerously > > dedicated mode is stupid. Based on the number of times I've shot > > myself in the foot trying to use dangaerously dedicated devices over > > the years, I'll never use them again. > > I'm curious, what kind of problems have you had, and how is using the > compatability slice an improvement? I've always used "dangerously > dedicated" on my freebsd-only disks, and I've never had a problem. When I first started using FreeBSD back in Feb 99, I tried to use DD disks and the system would not begin the boot process. It would count memory and hang. We are talking about three different drives and the boot would fail if any were DD. It was like the bios queried the HDs and the HD would not respond and the bios just sat there waiting for the response. The second I "fdisk /mbr" the drives the system would boot. The drives that I had these problems with were all Western Digital. Two of them died, one was in warranty and was replaced but while it was in the mail I, replaced it with a Maxtor UDMA 33. It is on the shelf because I can't see replacing a UDMA33 drive with one that only does PIO4. Kent > > Not disagreeing, just curious, > > Doug > -- > "So, the cows were part of a dream that dreamed itself into > existence, > is that possible?" asked the student incredulously. > The master simply replied, "Mu." > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message -- Kent Stewart Richland, WA mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.3-cities.com/~kstewart/index.html http://daily.daemonnews.org/ SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) @ Home http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: "dangerously dedicated"
> > "MS" == Mike Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > MS> Regardless of what you think, the only correct way to divvy up a disk on > MS> a PC is to start with an MBR and work down from there. There is no other > MS> way to do this properly, and to think otherwise merely demonstrates your > MS> ignorance. > > Excuse me, but an MBR is not an FDISK label. I had a system that had > BSD/OS instaled on it with no FDISK label and it worked just fine. The first 512 bytes of any disk attached to a PC are assumed to be a valid MBR. Such a valid MBR includes boot code, a table describing four disk regions and a checksum. This table of disk regions must be present; you cannot expect reliable operation without it. > Who's demonstrating ignorance here? "It works for me" isn't even close to a valid argument. -- \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: "dangerously dedicated"
> "MS" == Mike Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: MS> Regardless of what you think, the only correct way to divvy up a disk on MS> a PC is to start with an MBR and work down from there. There is no other MS> way to do this properly, and to think otherwise merely demonstrates your MS> ignorance. Excuse me, but an MBR is not an FDISK label. I had a system that had BSD/OS instaled on it with no FDISK label and it worked just fine. Linux detected the disk and installed fine, as well. The only time I ever needed to have an FDISK label on a PeeCee was when trying to boot with a silly NCR scsi controller that demanded one. An empty one was fine. Tried to install FreeBSD on it and it just hung when probing for devices. I finally booted a freedos disk and ran it's fdisk program to put in an empty FDISK label. Then FreeBSD was able to use the disk. Who's demonstrating ignorance here? -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Vivek Khera, Ph.D.Khera Communications, Inc. Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rockville, MD +1-301-545-6996 PGP & MIME spoken herehttp://www.kciLink.com/home/khera/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: "dangerously dedicated"
> > Why is using /dev/da0a stupid? FreeBSD is the only system I've > encountered that totally locks up (during a 3.3-RELEASE install from > CD) when there is no fdisk disk label. Is that why it is stupid? You can't boot from a disk that doesn't have an MBR on it. This is a feature of the PC BIOS, and it can't be worked around. > BSD/OS and Linux (RedHat 6.1) both deal with the lack of an fdisk disk > label just fine, and BSD/OS doesn't even require one, letting you use > the direct unix partitioning scheme. I much prefer it that way as it > just makes sense on a dedicated box, which is what all of mine are. You're out of your depth here, unfortunately. Both of these systems do install an MBR, they just don't tell you that they are. Regardless of what you think, the only correct way to divvy up a disk on a PC is to start with an MBR and work down from there. There is no other way to do this properly, and to think otherwise merely demonstrates your ignorance. -- \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
Re: Changing from Dangerously Dedicated?
Mike Meyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Someone want to know what might - or might not - have been broken by > this? A description of your actual problem might come in handy. DES -- Dag-Erling Smorgrav - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
