Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 20:04:16 -0500 From: Constantine Shkolnyy <stan@osgroup.com> To: "freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: MBR (Was RE: I just don't know...) Message-ID: <01BEB37C.6BA3B500.stan@osgroup.com>
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On Thursday, June 10, 1999 7:32 PM, Mark Ovens [SMTP:markov@globalnet.co.uk] wrote: > On Thu, Jun 10, 1999 at 04:48:54PM -0500, Constantine Shkolnyy wrote: > > On Thursday, June 10, 1999 4:41 PM, rick hamell [SMTP:hamellr@dsinw.com] > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > C:\> fdisk /mbr > > > > > > > > But where is the original boot sector stored? Wouldn't it be more > > > > reliable to copy it back? fdisk will copy a standard boot sector > > > > and sometimes it may be different from the original one. It is not > > > > safe to suggest such a use of fdisk in general case, without prior > > > > knowing of his configuration. > > > > > > That's what /mbr does, it restores an orginal copy of the boot > > > sector. Besides unless he has other boot managers in addition, there > > > is > > > no reason to not use it. > > > > Exactly. I just wanted to draw your attention that you people should > > always add the above warning to your advices to use fdisk /mbr or > > the machine may be rendered unusable. Get an unusable machine instead > > of machine with F? prompt - this is not what he wants :-) > > > > "original" mbr, er, wouldn't that mean that FreeBSD saved a copy of > the mbr and that Winblows knew where to find it and restore it? In > the Wonderful World of Winblows it's a case of: > > original mbr == standard mbr == ONLY mbr. When I said "original", I meant that one that existed before FreeBSD boot manager. It's my opinion that any software product should provide some means of "undoing" the changes it did to the computer system, whenever it's possible. Of course, it is not possible to restore the disk data that you agreed to overwrite with FreeBSD file system. It would be fine to let the user simply delete the FreeBSD partition. In the case of a boot manager, it would be nice if it could ask the user whether he wants to backup the existing MBR to some place, before re-writing it, so that the manager could be cleanly deleted in future. At installation time, if the user has some ill-brained MBR, he could find soon that his DOS/Windows doesn't boot. What should he do then? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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