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To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
Subject: Re: IDE install 
In-reply-to: j's message of Sun, 24 Mar 1996 00:05:37 +0100.
         <199603232305.AAA26090@uriah.heep.sax.de> 
Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
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Date: Sat, 23 Mar 1996 20:20:02 -0600
From: Randy Terbush <randy@zyzzyva.com>
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> As Randy Terbush wrote:
> 
> > I attempted to install a new set of boot blocks to FORCE_COMCONSOLE
> > with 'disklabel -B wd0' after recompiling the boot code from
> > FreeBSD-stable. The result nuked my partition table and MBR on
> > the drive forcing me to reinstall.
> 
> Well, instead of reinstalling, you could have asked. :)

Quicker to reinstall... :-)

> Yes, the old disklabel(8) nuked the fdisk table when installing a new
> bootstrap.  (I have fixed this since.)  However, you don't actually
> need the fdisk table at all, and you might probably have noticed that
> your system was still able to boot into single-user.  Anyway,
> sysinstall has been creating an /etc/fstab file with the `sliced'
> notion of all non-root partitions, e.g.
> 
> /dev/sd0a	/	ufs ...
>      ^^^^___________________________ non-sliced root f/s
> /dev/sd0s1b	swap	swawp ...
> /dev/sd0s1e	/usr	ufs ...
>         ^^__________________________ sliced naming convention
> 
> *This* was what caused it to stumple across the invalid fdisk table.
> (Slices [aka. ``fdisk partitions''] are only available with a valid
> fdisk table.)  Removing the `s1' substrings from within single-user
> mode would have saved you.  Note that ed(1) is available on the root
> file system.

This is not true in my case. The new boot blocks were installed
with the 'disklabel' from -stable, and it would not boot single
user, (except from floppy).

My next question is "how do I get these new boot blocks on without
doing this again?".