From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Sep 14 2:37:19 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1B90637B400 for ; Sat, 14 Sep 2002 02:37:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk [81.2.69.218]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 17C1F43E65 for ; Sat, 14 Sep 2002 02:37:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: from happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk ([IPv6:::1]) by smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id g8E9bFGV046973; Sat, 14 Sep 2002 10:37:15 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from matthew@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: (from matthew@localhost) by happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.12.6/8.12.6/Submit) id g8E9bAIE046972; Sat, 14 Sep 2002 10:37:10 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 10:37:10 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman To: Peter Leftwich Cc: FreeBSD LIST Subject: Re: disklabel -W /dev/ad1 error Message-ID: <20020914093710.GA46500@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophi> References: <20020913205904.K33339-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020913205904.K33339-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.1i Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 09:00:04PM -0400, Peter Leftwich wrote: > myprompt$ disklabel -W /dev/ad1 > disklabel: ioctl DIOCWLABEL: Operation not supported by device > > After the above, these next commands won't work right. Please help > someone? disklabel usually operates on a disk slice, rather than a whole disk: ie. disklabel -R -r /dev/ad1s1 /tmp/disklabel.out The only reason to run disklabel against a whole disk is when you want to create a 'dangerously dedicated' disk. In general, you don't want to do that: the usual slice/partition setup works very much better, is supported by every BIOS compatible with FreeBSD and the difference in usable space is trivially small compared to the size of a modern hard drive. To make a second disk bootable, use fdisk(8) and/or boot0cfg(8) --- the precise combination required depends on how many different OS's and disk drives you need to have bootable. This section of the handbook is pertinent: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/boot-blocks.html Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message