From owner-freebsd-questions Sun May 31 17:04:38 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA19227 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Sun, 31 May 1998 17:04:38 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [139.130.136.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA19174 for ; Sun, 31 May 1998 17:03:49 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id JAA27982; Mon, 1 Jun 1998 09:33:43 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19980601093342.R22406@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 09:33:42 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: walton@nordicdms.com, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, mike@smith.net.au Subject: Re: fdisk slice oddities References: <199805140024440448.02FAF632@mailgate.execpc.com> <19980530073409264.AAA277@mail.nordicdms.com> <19980530185741.K20360@freebie.lemis.com> <19980531125617.A26780@ucb.crimea.ua> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <19980531125617.A26780@ucb.crimea.ua>; from Ruslan Ermilov on Sun, May 31, 1998 at 12:56:17PM +0300 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, 31 May 1998 at 12:56:17 +0300, Ruslan Ermilov wrote: > On Sat, May 30, 1998 at 06:57:41PM +0930, Greg Lehey wrote: >> >> Dedicated mode. It's not only not dangerous, it's safer than >> non-dedicated mode. > > I don't think so, at least after my last -stable installation. > Interesting, what Mike Smith says about dedicated mode: > > msmith> "Dangerously dedicated" should probably be called "stupidly dedicated". > msmith> It is almost never a better idea to use this mode than the "normal" > msmith> mode. You'll notice he doesn't say why. This is superstition. If you're using a disk for one operating system (which should be the norm), it's neither stupid nor dangerous to use the disk for one operating system. The real problem we have with Microsoft partition tables ("non-dangerously-dedicated") is that our software is broken and can't always recognize the correct geometry. This is why a small DOS partition at the beginning of the disk helps: it also sets the correct parameters in the partition table. After that, you can delete the DOS partition, but the parameters stay correct. I haven't seen this particular bug with dedicated disks, though I haven't checked the code, so I can't be sure that it can't happen. Still, for single OS use, it is almost always a better idea to use this mode than the "normal" mode. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message