From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Oct 17 23:03:08 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 80F36106566B for ; Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:03:08 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3E6938FC0C for ; Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:03:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-195-71-245.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.71.245]) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3BE1C1DA99; Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:03:07 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id n9HN36lp001632; Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:03:06 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:03:06 +0200 From: Polytropon To: krad Message-Id: <20091018010306.3484ae98.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: <4AD8EB8F.9010900@videotron.ca> <4AD95740.6010408@gmail.com> <4ADA3D48.70307@videotron.ca> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: PJ , michael , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: I hate to bitch but bitch I must X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:03:08 -0000 On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:47:56 +0100, krad wrote: > he has a raw file system on that device, ie dangerously dedicated, no > partitions etc That's the standard mode for data disks that are not intended to be booted from. It's usable for USB sticks as well. There's no need for a slice. The comment "no partitions" is partially incorrect, because there is "kind of" a partition on the device. Note that this partition spans the whole device, which is indicated by the letter "c". In this case, /dev/da0 is /dev/da0c. I think it was in FreeBSD 5 when the "c" for "the whole" disk / partition has been "removed" (well, it's still there, it's the reason that you usually can't create da0s1a, da0s1b AND da0s1c, because da0s1c is da0s1), from the disk devices as well as from the acd devices (acd0c is acd0 today). At least, it's correct to say that there's one file system on the disk. Tools like fdisk and bsdlabel haven't been involved in creating it, just # newfs /dev/da0 was the tool of choice. I'd like to add that I've used this method on PDs (phase change discs) as well; they were introduced as da0 to the device directory. No need for slices because the whole disc should be used as one volume. A final note: You can, however, create multiple partitions on a device with no underlying slice, such as da0a, da0b, da0d, da0e etc. And FreeBSD can boot from it without problems. It's always the MICROS~1 stuff that has problems with it. :-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...