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Date:      Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:23:19 +0200 (CEST)
From:      Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de>
To:        freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Booting from 3TB drive (UFS, BIOS)
Message-ID:  <201208141323.q7EDNJhW019642@lurza.secnetix.de>

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Hi,

I've got a small PC that currently has two disks:  The
first one is 1 TB with a standard MBR, used to boot FreeBSD,
and the second one is 3 TB with GPT, used as data disk for
FreeBSD (the BIOS doesn't have to care about this one at all
because it's not used for booting).

Now I would like to replace the first disk with a 3 TB one,
too.  However, will I be able to boot from it?  The PC is
not exactly a new one (ASRock A330GC with Atom 330 processor,
a few years old) and has a standard BIOS (dated 07/16/2009).

I understand that I will have to use GPT in order to be able
to use the full capacity of 3 TB, and that I will have to
install a pmbr to enable the BIOS to detect the disk as
bootable.  Is this correct?  Will that work?  (Assuming that
the boot partition will have to be within the first 2 TB of
the drive, of course.)

If everything else fails, I'd consider using an additional
drive for booting, probably an SSD.  But I'd like to avoid
this if possible.

Best regards
   Oliver


-- 
Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M.
Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606,  Geschäftsfuehrung:
secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün-
chen, HRB 125758,  Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart

FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr:  http://www.secnetix.de/bsd

"The scanf() function is a large and complex beast that often does
something almost but not quite entirely unlike what you desired."
        -- Chris Torek



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