From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 3 05:32:15 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4832910656D2 for ; Wed, 3 Aug 2011 05:32:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-questions@m.gmane.org) Received: from lo.gmane.org (lo.gmane.org [80.91.229.12]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD1E98FC18 for ; Wed, 3 Aug 2011 05:32:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QoU3w-0003me-JY for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:32:12 +0200 Received: from pool-173-79-85-36.washdc.fios.verizon.net ([173.79.85.36]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:32:12 +0200 Received: from nightrecon by pool-173-79-85-36.washdc.fios.verizon.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:32:12 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org From: Michael Powell Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2011 01:35:30 -0400 Lines: 65 Message-ID: References: <20110802180606.4599d800@serene> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: pool-173-79-85-36.washdc.fios.verizon.net Subject: Re: 8.2-RELEASE-amd64.iso weirdness (help!) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: nightrecon@hotmail.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:32:15 -0000 Conrad J. Sabatier wrote: > I burned a copy of FreeBSD-8.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso to CD. It > booted and ran OK, but I encountered some rather odd behavior in a few > places: > > As another user mentioned elsewhere, the packages distributions are > beyond minimal, consisting only of some basic documentation in a > variety of locales or languages. No software packages at all. > > Worse still, though, is what I ran across in the > partitioning/labeling/boot record section of sysinstall; no more > "dangerously dedicated" mode (unless you go into "expert" mode, which > is rather a mystery to me), and worse yet, it seems that the options to > install a plain master boot record or boot manager have no effect > whatsoever! "Dangerously dedicated" is being deprecated in favor of more modern ways and methods to slice and partition. You should no longer seek to utilize it, and I think, if memory serves there was some talk at one time on removing it from fdisk and/or sysinstall. > This is causing me no end of grief, as I'm trying to return this > machine back to FreeBSD after having run Linux on it for some time. > The only reason I initially installed Linux was that, at the time I > bought the machine, neither my hard drive nor my CD drive were being > recognized by FreeBSD (this has been fixed since then, I'm happy to > report). > > The really crucial problem I'm facing right now is that I can't get > Linux's damned "grub" off of my hard drive! I was hoping that using > "dangerously dedicated" mode in sysinstall would allow me to overwrite > the lingering copy of grub on my hard drive that I just can't seem to > get rid of. The FreeBSD install works for the most part, despite the > few oddities mentioned above, but when I try to boot into it afterwards, > grub seizes control and hangs with an error code. > > I've tried numerous workarounds, using boot0cfg and both FreeBSD's and > Linux's fdisk and friends, but to no avail. I'm stymied at this point, > and desperately in need of some advice here. > > Can some sage person out there help me out of this predicament? Right > now I feel like I'm doomed to keep running Linux or nothing at all! I > am dying to get back to FreeBSD again. > Sounds like you need to zero the first part of your drive. The following is best done before installing, rather than afterwards. Either boot a LiveFS CD (which I have done before) or, I believe this is also possible from the Fixit shell (which I have not tried). In order to gain the ability to "force" writes to this area do this at a root prompt: sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=16 then to zero out the beginning of your disk do: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/adx oseek=1 bs=512 count=1 where x is the drive number. This should get the grub gone. Then install as normal. With the grub MBR out of the way you should now be able to install FreeBSD bootloader/MBR as you have in the past. -Mike