From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jul 27 17:47:28 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4EE2BE43 for ; Sat, 27 Jul 2013 17:47:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ataraxi@telia.com) Received: from smtp-out11.han.skanova.net (smtp-out11.han.skanova.net [195.67.226.200]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6B192E52 for ; Sat, 27 Jul 2013 17:47:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: from alice.nodomain.nowhere (95.199.155.25) by smtp-out11.han.skanova.net (8.5.133) (authenticated as u51204108) id 51B4CBC400F0BF49 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Sat, 27 Jul 2013 19:45:54 +0200 Received: by alice.nodomain.nowhere (Postfix, from userid 1002) id A2AF91F4DE7; Sat, 27 Jul 2013 19:39:30 +0200 (CEST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by alice.nodomain.nowhere (Postfix) with ESMTP id A17C21F4885 for ; Sat, 27 Jul 2013 19:39:30 +0200 (CEST) Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 19:39:30 +0200 (CEST) From: Conny Andersson To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: FreeBSD slices and the Boot Manager Message-ID: User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (BSF 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 17:47:28 -0000 Hi, I have a workstation with two factory installed hard disks. The first disk, ada0, is occupied by a Windows 7 Pro OS (mainly kept for the three year warranty of the workstation as Dell techs mostly speak the Microsoft language). Instead I have configured the BIOS to boot from the MBR on the second disk as I most of the time (99%) use FreeBSD. The MBR on ada1 was installed with sysinstall's option "Install the FreeBSD Boot Manager", when I installed the FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE. (The latest BIOS version 2.4.0 for Dell T1500 does not support UEFI/GPT/GUID.) The second disk ada1, now has three FreeBSD slices: 1) ada1s1 with FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE 2) ada1s2 with FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE 3) ada1s3 with FreeBSD 8.3-RELEASE I want to install the new FreeBSD 8.4-RELEASE on ada1s1 by overwriting the now existing two first slices. This means that ada1s3, must become ada1s2 instead. Is this possible to do? A very important question is if sysinstall's option "Install the FreeBSD Boot Manager" detects that I have a FreeBSD 8.3 and detect it as slice 2 on disk 1? So it becomes a boot option when I am rebooting? (Maybe the slice may come up as ad6s2, because AHCI in FreeBSD 8.4 isn't enabled at the time of the install.) If the answer to these questions is yes, then the next two questions arise. Can I mount ada1s2a (FreeBSD 8.3) from the newly installed FreeBSD 8.4 and edit my FreeBSD's 8.3-R /etc/fstab according to the new disk layout, and occasionally run FreeBSD 8.3 without problems? Or do I have to do more to get it to work? The idea behind this kind of 'reverse' disk layout of mine is to have FreeBSD 8.4 as my new default OS. And have FreeBSD 8.3 untouched for configuring FreeBSD 8.4 and booting into it when ever needed. If I can do this as described above, I will have plenty of space on the disk for the future and a new FreeBSD release. Thanks for your interest in my questions, Conny Andersson =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Conny Andersson =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=