From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 27 09:22:33 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 069A716A4BF for ; Wed, 27 Aug 2003 09:22:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp01.syd.iprimus.net.au (smtp01.syd.iprimus.net.au [210.50.30.52]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A47F843FFD for ; Wed, 27 Aug 2003 09:22:27 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from montaro@sixlabs.org) Received: from montaro3 (211.26.68.2) by smtp01.syd.iprimus.net.au (7.0.018) id 3F4C093C00029B71 for freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org; Thu, 28 Aug 2003 02:22:26 +1000 Message-ID: <005a01c36cb7$62151670$0300a8c0@lan.sixlabs.org> From: "Montaro" To: Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 02:22:16 +1000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 Subject: Re: Looking for detailed documentation: Install to existingfilesystem X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 16:22:33 -0000 If you mounted ad3s1e on /disk2 and on /disk2 was freebsd/ with the distrobution files in it, I am suspecting you would be telling sysinstall to look to /disk2/freebsd rather than /dev/ad3s1e/freebsd since /dev/ad3s1e/ is just the device not the acual mounted file system. Hope this helps. -- Cheers, Josh Sixlabs ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Howse" To: Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 11:48 PM Subject: RE: Looking for detailed documentation: Install to existingfilesystem > This is fairly easy. What you do it copy the files to a directory > on a second disk drive on the machine, and point sysinstall to that > partition/directory during the install. > > 8-). (tongue in cheek) Thank you! ;-) OK, here's what I did. Remember, I just want to install from scratch, not upgrade or anything too complicated. I copied the entire contents of CD 1 to /dev/ad3s1e/freebsd which I mount as /disk2/freebsd. I used Midnight Commander to do this, selecting each directory and telling it to dive into subdirectories if they exist. I booted from the CD, worked my way as usual to the Media Selection menu and chose Install from an existing filesystem. I *did* set the mount point for ad3s1e to /disk2 and did not toggle NewFS (preserve files). I entered /dev/ad3s1e/freebsd as the location. It failed with "can't copy from /mnt/dev/ad3s1e/freebsd" Try again? Y Failed. Etc., etc., etc. I tried the whole thing again, entering /mnt/dev/ad3s1e/freebsd this time as the location. Failed again. I looked at the debug output with ALT + F2, and the only thing I remember was that it said it couldn't open some file for writing. This is the exact same error that I see so many people posting about when I Goolge for a solution to this question. The most frequent thing they ask is, "Do I have to mount the partition on which the distfiles are located before I install? If so, how?" Any suggestions (careful! )? >PPS: I've posted detailed instructions on doing this at least >three times in the past three years, since I needed to upgrade >over NFS to a machine without anything but a local copy of >FreeBSD that could be booted; start looking around June of 2001 >in the -current and -hackers archives. I searched a while and didn't find anything, probably gave up too soon, decided to just wing it. I'm off today and don't mind fiddling around trying to figure this out. _______________________________________________ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"