From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 14 09:09:06 2009 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 1D4A51065670 for ; Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:09:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sektie@gmail.com) Received: from mail-qy0-f204.google.com (mail-qy0-f204.google.com [209.85.221.204]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C6CAB8FC23 for ; Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:09:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sektie@gmail.com) Received: by qyk42 with SMTP id 42so2309777qyk.3 for ; Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:09:05 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:received:in-reply-to :references:date:x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc :content-type; bh=Scq9qLcLUx+IK+sRDId4Qj62LTeGf9PsgfFsezSzZxo=; b=LETZmZ/YxqAj0pIC8p9RyNRYCzB63rLkL6KKszE9kB2MRaK1zj2o1Q531sQyj2dN+o xTauSOpDGNW4oxi+AbOWCNhRXnLQVjs6aQ6MUVXcBsqiz/Pvz/GvM7E1xoIT+1t74j5D /33tSkpMaaEUafJQQWaF9iqz844TIQW/SGhOU= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; b=OAMJEeAVwiuz5ahXdJuBWK/5bXNR5XKc3duS8Z3Z3A/l/MMZskoSSXNdUU3rVHGF64 y/fEzuCYPOgTxOstF/RN11qhBWAXySGe2EWDenB7IMUYvj3gH4pQZMeirvtuTf20dEVB ojNukQIvtWLmU5vheuSxKAF3AXpqjmsf60YZQ= MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: sektie@gmail.com Received: by 10.229.96.73 with SMTP id g9mr1043023qcn.45.1247562194034; Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:03:14 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4A5BBBA9.2030800@onetel.com> References: <4A5BBBA9.2030800@onetel.com> Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:03:14 -0700 X-Google-Sender-Auth: 4eac6b69b09100b5 Message-ID: From: Randi Harper To: Chris Whitehouse Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: User Questions Subject: Re: partition black magic but no data lost phew! X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:09:06 -0000 On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Chris Whitehouse wrote: > Hi, > > This is from memory (brain not ram) and I can't recreate the steps for > reasons which will be obvious, so may not be entirely accurate. > > I have a sata hard disk which is divided into 2 slices. Slice 1 (ad4s1) is > about half the disk and had the remains of a standard install with swap, / , > /var, /tmp, /usr. Slice 2 (ad4s2) is the remainder and has a single > partition for data, ad4s2d. It was all created with sysinstall and doesn't > have anything special like dangerously dedicated. > > The operating system on this machine is on a second hard disk which is what > I booted from. > > I moved all the data from ad4s1f onto ad4s2d so that I could delete > partitions from slice 1 and make a single large partition. > > I then unmounted all ad4* partitions. I may even have rebooted. > > sysinstall - Configure - Label allowed me to delete ad4s1a but when I tried > to delete the other ad4s1* partitions sysinstall told me I had to set > kern.geom.debugflags=16 before I could make changes on a running system . I > set kern.geom.debugflags but changes I made in sysinstall did not take > effect, the partitions persisted, both as /dev/ad4s1* and as entries in > sysinstall > > At some stage sysinstall core dumped and somewhere else ad4s2d got deleted. > I managed to recreate it and didn't lose any data. > > Next I booted from a pen drive and successfully deleted the partitions from > slice 1, being very careful not to delete the partition on slice 2, however > when I exited from sysinstall ad4s2d was gone. Again I managed to recreate > it and didn't lose any data. > > The bit that puzzles me is that ad4s2d disappeared twice and the second > time I am sure I didn't do any explicit steps to delete it. > > Did I hit a bug in sysinstall or did I do something wrong? I didn't lose > any data in the end but I could easily have done (I know - back up - I'm > going to go and buy a nice big external hard disk very soon ;) > > FreeBSD muji 7.1-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 7.1-PRERELEASE #0: Mon Nov 24 20:22:16 > EST 2008 root@pcbsdx32-7:/usr/obj/pcbsd-build/cvs/7.0.2-src/sys/PCBSD > i386 > > Everything is sorted now so I am really asking this out of curiousity. > > Thanks > > Chris > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to " > freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" When you booted from the pen drive, was sysinstall running as init? ie: is this the memstick.img from the ftp site or a homebrew disc1.iso->usb image, or did you have freebsd installed to the pen drive? If so, what version? -- randi