From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 29 07:55:31 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55337106564A for ; Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:55:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mueller23@insightbb.com) Received: from mail.insightbb.com (smtp1.insight.synacor.com [208.47.185.23]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0100E8FC1D for ; Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:55:30 +0000 (UTC) X_CMAE_Category: 0,0 Undefined,Undefined X-CNFS-Analysis: v=1.1 cv=ZdgeqqWyEqdsZA/6sYCsNQDiVRGgkxbcAkDgcSgWq+E= c=1 sm=0 a=jLN7EqiLvroA:10 a=xgybLb7VNC4A:10 a=pGLkceISAAAA:8 a=28bguoTQAAAA:8 a=_ctWjzdLAAAA:8 a=Fr8x0r-PAAAA:8 a=HKILQ1s0v1WPlU_H_LMA:9 a=MSl-tDqOz04A:10 a=AcdsImxJPJ9Yo6Ye3TGm+Q==:117 X-CM-Score: 0 X-Scanned-by: Cloudmark Authority Engine Authentication-Results: smtp01.insight.synacor.com header.from=mueller23@insightbb.com; sender-id=softfail Authentication-Results: smtp01.insight.synacor.com smtp.mail=mueller23@insightbb.com; spf=softfail; sender-id=softfail Received-SPF: softfail (smtp01.insight.synacor.com: transitional domain insightbb.com does not designate 74.134.34.76 as permitted sender) Received: from [74.134.34.76] ([74.134.34.76:56715] helo=localhost) by mail.insightbb.com (envelope-from ) (ecelerity 2.2.2.40 r(29895/29896)) with ESMTP id 14/9E-04178-BEACD305; Wed, 29 Aug 2012 03:55:24 -0400 Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2012 03:55:23 -0400 Message-ID: <14.9E.04178.BEACD305@smtp01.insight.synacor.com> From: "Thomas Mueller" To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Cc: Lynn Steven Killingsworth Subject: Re: Partitioning with gpart X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:55:31 -0000 from "Lynn Steven Killingsworth" : > I have installed PC-BSD 9.1 RC1 last week. Very nice I must say. > The default file system is zfs. I have one storage disk which is ufs and > another which is on an mbr partition. I thought I would format the mbr > disk with zfs and move everything from the ufs disk and then format the > ufs disk with zfs. > I have not tried the command line before so I just tried to create over > the disk with: gpart create -s gpt ada2 > The message is that ada2 already exists as a file system. > Show indicates that it is not gpt but mbr. > Then in order to start over I tried to delete and destroy by starting with: > gpart delete -i 1 ada2s1 > The message is that ada2s1 is an invalid argument. > I cannot experiment on my backup as it has only one disk. > Comment please? Either gpt (included in FreeBSD prior to the switch to gpart) or gdisk (now at v0.8.5 and in FreeBSD ports) can migrate an MBR-partitioned disk to GPT without loss of data in many cases, though backing up is still advised. You can find information about gdisk at http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/ gdisk is much more versatile than gpart, can be used to make partitions for Windows, Linux, NetBSD, etc. I don't think you can get gpt for FreeBSD, but if you're curious, you can go to http://www.netbsd.org/ and look for the documentation/man pages. It was gpt in NetBSD that I used to migrate an NTFS partition (MBR) spanning an entire 3 TB Western Digital My Book USB 3.0 hard drive to GPT, no data was lost. I subsequently booted Linux from the System Rescue CD (http://sysresccd.org/) and copied the software/data to a USB stick so I could free the USB 3.0 hard drive for better things. Maybe I could have done the repartitioning with gdisk, which is included on the System Rescue CD, this would be Linux. Tom