From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 23 19:26:26 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2B01716A4B3 for ; Thu, 23 Oct 2003 19:26:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from out010.verizon.net (out010pub.verizon.net [206.46.170.133]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2BCA243FD7 for ; Thu, 23 Oct 2003 19:26:25 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kent.hauser@verizon.net) Received: from kent ([4.42.101.169]) by out010.verizon.net (InterMail vM.5.01.05.33 201-253-122-126-133-20030313) with ESMTP id <20031024022624.MIDE12520.out010.verizon.net@kent>; Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:26:24 -0500 From: Kent Hauser To: Dan Strick Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 16:26:31 -1000 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.3 References: <200310220217.h9M2HBNM000495@ice.nodomain> In-Reply-To: <200310220217.h9M2HBNM000495@ice.nodomain> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200310231626.35121.kent.hauser@verizon.net> X-Authentication-Info: Submitted using SMTP AUTH at out010.verizon.net from [4.42.101.169] at Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:26:23 -0500 cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: restoring DOS partition from a tar file (SOLUTION) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 02:26:26 -0000 On Tuesday 21 October 2003 04:17 pm, you wrote: > On Mon, 20 Oct 2003, Kent Hauser wrote: > > Is it possible to backup a DOS partition (bootable) & restore it from a > > tar file? I recently had a disk failure & used dump/restore on FreeBSD > > partitions & made a tar dump of the DOS one. After "newfs_msdos" & "tar > > x", the partition is not bootable. Is there a way to do this? > > This is actually a really interesting issue. The short answer to this > question is, "no." The long answer is, "I don't really know. Maybe." > I now know how to make this work. And it was a long strange journey. First, when I did "fdisk" & "newfs_msdos" from FreeBSD, neither my W98 SE distribution CD, nor my "Gateway Restore" CD would recognize the drive! (Hardware error, no drive C found.) Then when I delete all partitions, the W98 distribution disk would format the drive & install the OS, but FreeBSD would freeze during the un-tar. (Same result, 2 tries.) I was completely successful when I used the boot CD that came with the Seagate drive (downloadable from http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/discwiz.html). The "fdisk" and "format" on that CD allowed me to partition and format for W98. I created a bootable floppy which allowed my to "sys" the new C drive. The W98 was bootable. And the "tar" restore from FreeBSD worked fine. My conclusion: The FreeBSD fdisk + newfs_msdos seem to be buggy with regard to creating a primary DOS partition. The seagate tool + bootable W98 floppy allowed me to create bootable W98 partition. The tarfile restored the data. Your mileage may vary as I'm not a very good judge of when W98 is working properly.