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Date:      Thu, 24 Oct 2002 15:10:29 -0400 (EDT)
From:      John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Mark Valentine <mark@thuvia.demon.co.uk>
Cc:        Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>, Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com>, Takahashi Yoshihiro <nyan@jp.FreeBSD.org>, cvs-committers@freebsd.org, cvs-all@freebsd.org, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/lib/libdisk Makefile chunk.c write_alpha_dis
Message-ID:  <XFMail.20021024151029.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
In-Reply-To: <200210241905.g9OJ5ahD045378@dotar.thuvia.org>

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On 24-Oct-2002 Mark Valentine wrote:
>> From: jhb@freebsd.org (John Baldwin)
>> Date: Thu 24 Oct, 2002
>> Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/lib/libdisk Makefile chunk.c write_alpha_dis
> 
>> And all i386 disks have MBR's cause the BIOS basically wants them
>> there and won't work without them.  Pretending that they don't
>> exist is just nonsense.
> 
> The MBR partitioning is a feature of the MBR boot code, not of the BIOS.
> 
> If I ever come across such a broken BIOS I will be even more grateful
> if "/dev/da0c" continues to do the right thing so I don't have to change
> the world due to it.

How about Adaptec SCSI BIOS's and other "smart" BIOS's that look
at the MBR to guess what geometry you are using so that they can
adjust their BIOS to DTRT?  These choke if you don't have a valid
MBR.  MBR's are part of the i386 defacto architecture, deal.

-- 

John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.FreeBSD.org/

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