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Date:      Sun, 26 Mar 1995 22:39:06 -0800 (PST)
From:      "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com>
To:        bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans)
Cc:        bde@zeta.org.au, freebsd-current@freefall.cdrom.com, jc@irbs.com
Subject:   Re: Slice errors
Message-ID:  <199503270639.WAA13215@gndrsh.aac.dev.com>
In-Reply-To: <199503270626.QAA09705@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from "Bruce Evans" at Mar 27, 95 04:26:49 pm

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> 
> >> >Use fdisk -u to correct the partition table so that size==size of
> >> >your BSD c or d partition and things should be fine.  What you see
> >> >above is the bogus partition table that gets installed if you install
> >> >new boot blocks.
> >> 
> >> This advice no longer applies.  The bogus partition table is specially
> >> handled to make it work.  Changing it risks introducing bugs and
> >> changes will be blown away by new boot blocks.
> 
> >That advise got the chap up and running from private email I got
> >back from him.   And he now has given me a patch for fdisk that
> >fixes some real stupid errors (writting 0 as a value for beginning
> >sector if you let it calculate the beg/end C/H/S addresses).
> 
> I introduced that bug :-(.  There was no way to delete a partition
> using fdisk.  There is still no way to clear all the active flags.
> Setting the size AND the base of a partition should clear everything.
> (It's convenient to have empty partitions with a nonzero base.  It
> stops some (braindamaged) systems from reordering the partition
> numbers.)

Yes there was a way to delete partitions using fdisk, I've been using
it to do that for a very long time.  You had to say ``y'' to the
specify beg/end C/H/S and manual set them all to zero.  Your changes
serously broke the usability of fdisk in that it now always writes
a very invalid partition if the user lets fdisk pick the beg/end
values :-(.

You want to fix it or should I?

> >I am using that advice here on all my machines and it is much happier
> >about this than allowing the bogus 500000 block boot stuff live!!!
> 
> I want the invalid table to just work.  I tested it, but only on a
> floppy, so I want to see more bug reports about it if there are any
> bugs.

You won't see any from me on it, I always run with a valid partition
table.


-- 
Rod Grimes                                      rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com
Accurate Automation Company                   Custom computers for FreeBSD



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