Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:39:42 +1100 (EST) From: Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au> To: Derek Funk <dfunk6@cox.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPT Question Message-ID: <20101112181758.O76697@sola.nimnet.asn.au> In-Reply-To: <20101112004729.7F733106578D@hub.freebsd.org> References: <20101112004729.7F733106578D@hub.freebsd.org>
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In freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 336, Issue 9, Message: 23 On Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:45:19 -0600 Derek Funk <dfunk6@cox.net> wrote: > On 11/10/2010 9:34 PM, Mark Caudill wrote: [..] > > just ran `dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad12 bs=512` and let it run. That must > > have done the trick because I was then able to partition the disk in > > sysinstall and all is well. What I'm wondering is what really went on > > here? I'm not clear at all as to why FreeBSD (or some mechanism within > > this installation) isn't able to handle this. Or was this a GPT issue at > > all? I'd like to find out what was going on so that I don't chase my > > tail again on issues like this in the future. Thanks. > My understanding is, if you are using FreeBSD 8.x, sysinstall / fdisk > will not write disk partitions. gpart is used now. Your understanding is incorrect. In 8.x you MAY use gpart now, but sysinstall (when running as init from a booted installation medium) still slices and partitions disks fine, and sysinstall - or sade(8) - (when run as a utility from a working system) will indeed write to the boot sectors including MBR, and will happily slice and partition disk/s other than the boot slice, if and only if you have previously set sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=16 - not called the 'foot-shooting' bit for nothing - so don't forget to set it back to 0 when you've finished. cheers, Ian
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