Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 18:57:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Adrian Filipi-Martin <adrian@ubergeeks.com> To: John Baldwin <jhb@pike.osd.bsdi.com> Cc: "Patrick M. Hausen" <hausen@punkt.de>, stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: No /boot/loader (dangerously dedicated) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10007231845580.9238-100000@lorax.ubergeeks.com> In-Reply-To: <200007232030.NAA23028@pike.osd.bsdi.com>
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On Sun, 23 Jul 2000, John Baldwin wrote: > Patrick M. Hausen wrote: > > Hello all! > > > > Mikhail Teterin wrote: > > > > > John Baldwin once stated: > > > > > > Folks, gemoetries are for brain damaged PC operating systems. > > All the box needs to boot is a proper MBR. BIOSes that > > don't boot from a dedicated disk are _broken_. > > No, they are actually smart in that they attempt to use a geometry that > matches the MBR so that you can move disks around. As a result, when we > try to fake it, it confuses them. Hmmm. Perhaps my memory is failing me, but I've been using "dangerously dedicated" disks exclusively for the last few years, because it was supposed to insulate me from the silliness of BIOS geometry translation. By insulate, I mean that a disk formatted on one system was always usable on another even if it decided to have a different geometry translation. I don't shuttle disks around between systems as much as I used to, but I do recall dedicated mode helping. The only systems that had problem booting were old and are long gone. I haven't seen or bought anything in the last three years that won't boot a "dangerously dedicated" disk. Is the requirement of an MBR going to apply to removable media like MO drives? I've only ever gotten these to work in "dangerously dedicated" mode. > > I'm really puzzled by this thread, because after years of running FreeBSD > > I've come to the opinion that "dedicated" is how disks should be partitioned > > under all circumstances ... I mean, where's the partition table on > > my Sparc systems running Solaris? Who would care installing MS OSs > > additionally to FreeBSD on a server providing 24x7 service? > > IA-64 mandates a valid MBR. It boots from a special FAT-32 partition > containing the EFI boot loader. Get used to the idea. Ugh. Well, I guess FAT-32 is no-longer a MS-DOS thing now, in the same way that the MBR ins't. So much for the advancement of technology. Adrian -- [ adrian@ubergeeks.com -- Ubergeeks Consulting -- http://www.ubergeeks.com/ ] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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