From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 15 15:52:25 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 59630106564A for ; Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:52:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jhb@freebsd.org) Received: from bigwig.baldwin.cx (bigknife-pt.tunnel.tserv9.chi1.ipv6.he.net [IPv6:2001:470:1f10:75::2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3095D8FC1A for ; Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:52:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from jhbbsd.localnet (unknown [209.249.190.124]) by bigwig.baldwin.cx (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 9B880B978; Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:52:24 -0400 (EDT) From: John Baldwin To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:11:51 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (FreeBSD/8.2-CBSD-20110714-p17; KDE/4.5.5; amd64; ; ) References: <201208141323.q7EDNJhW019642@lurza.secnetix.de> In-Reply-To: <201208141323.q7EDNJhW019642@lurza.secnetix.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201208151111.51123.jhb@freebsd.org> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.7 (bigwig.baldwin.cx); Wed, 15 Aug 2012 11:52:24 -0400 (EDT) Cc: Oliver Fromme Subject: Re: Booting from 3TB drive (UFS, BIOS) X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:52:25 -0000 On Tuesday, August 14, 2012 9:23:19 am Oliver Fromme wrote: > Hi, > > I've got a small PC that currently has two disks: The > first one is 1 TB with a standard MBR, used to boot FreeBSD, > and the second one is 3 TB with GPT, used as data disk for > FreeBSD (the BIOS doesn't have to care about this one at all > because it's not used for booting). > > Now I would like to replace the first disk with a 3 TB one, > too. However, will I be able to boot from it? The PC is > not exactly a new one (ASRock A330GC with Atom 330 processor, > a few years old) and has a standard BIOS (dated 07/16/2009). > > I understand that I will have to use GPT in order to be able > to use the full capacity of 3 TB, and that I will have to > install a pmbr to enable the BIOS to detect the disk as > bootable. Is this correct? Will that work? (Assuming that > the boot partition will have to be within the first 2 TB of > the drive, of course.) > > If everything else fails, I'd consider using an additional > drive for booting, probably an SSD. But I'd like to avoid > this if possible. A GPT boot should work, and the boot partition can even be above 2 TB. (GPT booting only uses the EDD BIOS interface which uses 64-bit LBAs, and the GPT boot code will use all 64-bits of the LBAs stored in GPT, etc.) -- John Baldwin