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Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 18:13:34 +1100
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199701100713.SAA19582@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: j@uriah.heep.sax.de, kingram@ipro.com
Subject: Re: Adding Hard Drives - Prepping
Cc: FreeBSD-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Sender: owner-current@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

>new one.  Do you want to disklabel it, in order to create partitions?
>Certainly, you want.  That's the only mandatory step.  Well, either

Actually, it's not mandatory.  newfs has some crufty `#ifdef COMPAT'
support for the crufty /etc/disktab.  This allows newfs'ing any device
or partition that has a suitable entry in /etc/disktab.  E.g.,

	newfs fd1c floppy5		# Works for unlabelled 5 inch floppies.

	newfs fd1a floppy5		# Fails for me on an unlabelled floppy
					# because /dev/rfd1a doesn't exist
					# since there is no label, although
					# the label that newfs constructs
					# from /etc/disktab says that there
					# is an `a' partition.

	newfs fd1a floppy5		# Works in -current because labels
					# on floppies are br^H^Hnot supported
					# and /dev/rfd1a is just a link to
					# /dev/rfd1c.

	newfs fd1 floppy5		# Right way to label whole floppy.
					# Fails for me because of device-non-
					# independence in newfs.  newfs
					# appends an `a' if the drive name
					# ends with a digit and runs into
					# a different labelling problem:
					# there is a label on /dev/rfd1, and
					# newfs starts using it, but then
					# appending the `a' switches to a
					# device for which the label is
					# invalid (the label is for the
					# whole disk, and appending the `a'
					# gives the wrong partition in the
					# compatibility slice).

	newfs fd1 floppy5		# Works in -current, as above.

Bruce