Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2015 19:44:49 +0000 From: John McDonnell <mcdonnjd@pcam.org> To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: POS system trashing hard drives during install Message-ID: <A09B69E6B9C91963.1-0f9df8ab-2681-4d43-8ca6-2b8a2979e123@mail.outlook.com> In-Reply-To: <BLUPR07MB3216D5F435ACE02480752CBBAE40@BLUPR07MB321.namprd07.prod.outlook.com> References: <BLUPR07MB321C9B805585AB5A6456D0ABAE00@BLUPR07MB321.namprd07.prod.outlook.com> <alpine.BSF.2.20.1512172208100.4409@wonkity.com>, <BLUPR07MB3216D5F435ACE02480752CBBAE40@BLUPR07MB321.namprd07.prod.outlook.com>
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Apologizing in advance if the formatting of this gets all out of whack. Don=
't have a handy way of doing a copy and paste from up here where I have an =
old system with PATA connectors. So I'm typing by hand on my phone. Though,=
thinking about it now, maybe I should have done this from the POS since it=
will boot the XP disk. Maybe it will show something different. Anyway, her=
e goes:
root@:~ # gpart show ada0
=3D> 63 78165297 ada0 MBR (37G)
63 40965687 1 ntfs [active] (20G)
40965750 37190475 2 ebr (18G)
78156225 9135 - free - (4.5M)
=3D> 0 37190475 ada0s2 EBR (18G)
0 37190475 1 ntfs (18G)
=3D> 63 78165297 diskid/DISK-5JVXZE4S MBR (37G)
63 40965687 1 ntfs [=
active] (20G)
40965750 37190475 2 ebr (18G)
78156225 9135 - free - (=
4.5M)
=3D> 0 37190475 diskid/DISK-5JVXZE4Ss2 EBR (18G)
0 37190475 1 ntfs =
(18G)
That looks like a pretty normal layout to me. Guessing that there might be =
something special inside the MBR itself or something in the "empty" sectors=
. Is there some other command than "gpart show" that would be helpful?
--
John McDonnell
mcdonnjd@pcam.org
Sent from Outlook<http://taps.io/outlookmobile>; Mobile
On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 11:08 AM -0800, "John McDonnell" <mcdonnjd@pcam.org=
<mailto:mcdonnjd@pcam.org>> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> On Thu, 17 Dec 2015, John McDonnell wrote:
>
> It took some looking to find this description of the problem in the post.
Sorry, I do tend to ramble on a bit.
> Some systems do stupid things based on what they find on the hard disk.
> Lenovo and IBM before them did this, for example. Still do, in some case=
s. It
> is not just a GPT thing, they did stupid things with MBR partitions also.=
The
I completely forgot about this. I have run across that issue with the IBM/L=
enovo Thinkpads before. When imaging the 300 some laptops the first time, w=
e ran into issues because it wasn't copying some part of the boot blocks an=
d I then learned about the /ib switch in Ghost which solved the issue with =
those laptops. (And also later with DeepFreeze.) Hopefully we can get this =
figured out so I can use FreeBSD on these systems.
> idea that old systems can't boot from GPT is incorrect. GPT has the PMBR=
, a
> backwards-compatible MBR booting mechanism.
I actually did know this, but conveniently had forgotten about that. So it =
shouldn't be an issue with GPT itself, except that the system itself is pro=
bably looking for something specific in the MBR or on the disk...
> Some systems require a system partition for the BIOS.
>
> Given that this is a custom system, there might be some kind of security
> information stored on the drive.
It is looking like this might be the case. I had a chance to install FreeBS=
D onto another hard drive from another machine and had it up and running an=
d then brought it over to one of the same model POS machines I have sitting=
in my office and tried to boot it up and it just locks up after detecting =
the hard drives and won't enter the BIOS.
> If it were me, I would use gpart to look at the partitioning on the XP dr=
ive. It
> is likely MBR, but the number, type, and size of partitions could be a cl=
ue.
The XP drive is definitely MBR and not GPT. I should be able to get the inf=
o on that drive from gpart a little later this afternoon if things stay qui=
et.
Since this is locking up again like my old drives were, I'm wondering if I =
pop it back into the other PC if it will recognize it again or if it will f=
ail. I'm hopeful that it will recognize it as that would mean that my vario=
us 80 GB drives may still be alive and just need a better interface than th=
e IDE to USB adapter I was using at home. (I had been planning on using tho=
se hard drives in a couple of Playstation 2s.)
Thank you for your help so far. :)
--
John McDonnell
mcdonnjd@pcam.org
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