From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Tue Nov 22 05:09:39 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B7D92C4E013 for ; Tue, 22 Nov 2016 05:09:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from markmoellering@psyberation.com) Received: from mail-qt0-x229.google.com (mail-qt0-x229.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:400d:c0d::229]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7FC5114E0 for ; Tue, 22 Nov 2016 05:09:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from markmoellering@psyberation.com) Received: by mail-qt0-x229.google.com with SMTP id c47so4246107qtc.2 for ; Mon, 21 Nov 2016 21:09:39 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=psyberation-com.20150623.gappssmtp.com; s=20150623; h=mime-version:from:date:message-id:subject:to; bh=/AncaXiV2f77jh5lSKoQgcC9jE4dqqP9HeDEG49DESk=; b=dV/2tNYL8K4X9C6BBhCZiCHD03JaTZiT+SE4l4WDziqJG8tSr0REi4Q3BoM2b+8GDj FTQycgYi4kEIabN7I4PpSklMjCJvj8VWV6lQcwnR5bRros/ie7bWx1KGds5eyEd3wTNU RIU4idL76wMZhRFejZkWuz7Ku5eEm2qnzEChGzLk4dfjJlF2oIRho8sgUku8C1LkT8jx BzUrV+FFFwgjQEgg4/gonZtQjKJcc96uC8UTi9VlsHrCo9GgQbuDzvAT7OxbsPC9J3Kt m4ATDoPuiCLRPkB7vEU3amVzr5aVR3+ol9tskfj7B3D0sceRdraQbzVwvwQuZ6gK0o5u 2phg== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:from:date:message-id:subject:to; bh=/AncaXiV2f77jh5lSKoQgcC9jE4dqqP9HeDEG49DESk=; b=N7udcJd18Xk59H14hkvoRiJrF3eXvEPGR5lOYFszndosZFgI8i5aQin5kny0NuST91 mB7Kfn3BgwWd5E7eQT04QAIK1ocxFckp3mI6sQBd/rlY08D8c/37pwPLtgSoJjMnqo75 rUTLeCUWoEfydKyhmoKC4ktdy7kOeuazOCgMGdY6ZY1xLWclCB5OiuWn4na7Fu9QWD7T QMBsX1RFNEyFOlUV+TqtSKU/WjvuHPzN1DZHqFr/ahGSGWWKyi5+88b+bQB4+iTt7ajl v1RwJUxer1mWX7FxnW/6Wushc5XDaFH8wr8gflUZttIn7ZRlXA6dBvz6ZFSoDyrCha9a uH1w== X-Gm-Message-State: AKaTC01MKEngrf2TuPPRQ3uHfLimuGbPlHkB1YEljBV8gbzMdpbUzn5lo7DVXGXQG+VsvZkL0Vi/6npaXF883A== X-Received: by 10.200.35.105 with SMTP id b38mr10503802qtb.28.1479791378398; Mon, 21 Nov 2016 21:09:38 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.237.59.203 with HTTP; Mon, 21 Nov 2016 21:09:38 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Moellering Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2016 00:09:38 -0500 Message-ID: Subject: replacing bootloader wipes disk? To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, info@classcreator.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2016 05:09:39 -0000 Everyone, I have an odd situation. I am helping a small company out, after my regular work hours, with their email server, which is on an older version FreeBSD (8.X or possibly 9.0) I got a call a few days ago, saying the server wouldn't boot. The server is at a hosting company but I was able to connect over a software KVM. They had a new 11.0 live disk to boot from, which I used to run fsck on each partition (it is running the old UFS2 partitions) and clean all the drives. When everything was finished and all drives were marked clean, I tried to boot from hard drive, it came up with GRUB and was trying to boot into linux , with the error "Can't find EXT3 Superblock". The error made sense but I had no idea why it was using GRUB, so I said there was something wrong with the bootloader. The next day (today), I was forwarded an email saying they ran the following commands to try and replace the bootloader. fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 /dev/ada0 and boot0cfg -B ada0 When I checked the drive this evening, it appeared to be completely blank, except for a bootloader. I am not good enough with fdisk to tell but could these commands have erased the drive? They don't look like they would but fdisk is not something I use much... Any help is greatly appreciated I am hoping they put in a new drive but since I don't work on this machine until after hours, I am not talking to the tech's working on it during the day. Again, all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance Mark Moellering