From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Sep 17 06:27:20 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id GAA05845 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 17 Sep 1996 06:27:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from lictor.acsu.buffalo.edu (cjm2@lictor.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.7.4]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id GAA05837 for ; Tue, 17 Sep 1996 06:27:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (cjm2@localhost) by lictor.acsu.buffalo.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA09753; Tue, 17 Sep 1996 09:26:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 09:26:40 -0400 (EDT) From: "Christopher J. Michaels" To: Alan Dunham 284-9866 cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: dos + FreeBSD 2.1 on IDE, dos needs format In-Reply-To: <199609161809.MAA13631@sun.cuug.ab.ca> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk no, yes, bad, no. The only thing formatting C: from DOS will do is format c: for dos. It will not rewrite the MBR and it has absolutely no effect on other partitions. Despite the overall feeling here, MS-DOS is not THAT stupid. On Mon, 16 Sep 1996, Alan Dunham 284-9866 wrote: > > Hi: I have just installed FreeBSD 2.1 on a new IDE disk (Fireball 1.2). > I set up a 400Mb partition for DOS before I installed FreeBSD on the > rest of the drive. But I didn't format C: first (not thinking ahead, > I guess). Now that FreeBSD is up, I am afraid to format C: because I > don't trust DOS software. > > I have an archive of 386bsd & FreeBSD newsgroups since Aug 92. I can > almost always find a solution to any problem I have by looking there. > But it seems that no one else has made this mistake. > > -Is there a way of doing a DOS format from BSD on /dev/rwd0s1? > -If I format C:, will it leave my BSD partition (slice) intact? > -If I change the CMOS to tell it that C: has only 813 cylinders instead > of the actual 2484, then will format C: leave BSD alone? > -Will a dos format destroy the BSD boot manager & boot blocks & > disklabel? > > thanks, > Al > > Alan Dunham /\ The finest views are only seen > dunhamal@cuug.ab.ca /\ \ from the hardest routes. > Calgary, Alberta / \ \ A. F. Mummery > -Christopher Michaels Student Consultant:645-3542 *************************************************************************** * E-Mail: cjm2@acsu.buffalo.edu * * Homepage: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~cjm2 * ***************************************************************************