Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 12:08:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Marc Ramirez <mrami@mramirez.sy.yale.edu> To: Gene Stark <gene@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu> Cc: Steve Galle <wavefront.wti.com!steveg@sbstark.cs.sunysb.edu>, questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: MSDOS Partition Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.950514120443.1596B-100000@mramirez.sy.yale.edu> In-Reply-To: <199505122338.TAA03714@starkhome.cs.sunysb.edu>
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On Fri, 12 May 1995, Gene Stark wrote: > >You have a time bomb on your hands. Mine just blew a few days ago. The problem > >is that even though you did the fdisk and set the new partitioning, the > >disklabel is still telling dos it has the whole disk to play with. Of course, a > > Does DOS have a "disklabel"? What seems to happen is the following: > > If you use FDISK to partition your disk, and then > you format one slice under DOS, and then > you change the MBR partition table with FDISK, you leave > the DOS slice starting at the same place, but you > reduce its size, and then > you put good FreeBSD data in the area that used to be allocated > to DOS, but isn't any more, and then > you use DOS FORMAT to try to reformat the smaller slice, > > then DOS will quite happily and quickly ignore what the MBR says and > format over your good FreeBSD data. DOS will be happy iff you reformat the partition (or use a partition editor like fips). Otherwise, the FAT still believes the DOS slice extends into the FreeBSD one, and DOS will happily allocate/write blocks in your root partition... > The solution is to backup your DOS area, then use FreeBSD to write > garbage (like a copy of /kernel, or something) over the beginning of > the DOS slice so that it doesn't appear to be valid to DOS. > > Then you can reformat safely under DOS. > > - Gene Stark Marc. -- You couldn't get a clue during the clue mating season in a field full of horny clues if you smeared your body with clue musk and did the clue mating dance. - Edward Flaherty
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