From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jun 13 23:56:50 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9E6FE1065676 for ; Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:56:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from danallen46@airwired.net) Received: from mail.utahbroadband.com (mail.utahbroadband.com [204.14.20.91]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 611058FC21 for ; Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:56:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from danallen46@airwired.net) Received: (qmail 1157 invoked by uid 89); 13 Jun 2009 22:44:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.0.18?) (danallen46@airwired.net@66.29.174.6) by mail.utahbroadband.com with ESMTPA; 13 Jun 2009 22:44:56 -0000 Message-Id: From: Dan Allen To: "Paul B. Mahol" In-Reply-To: <3a142e750906131642n4d00469dh779e54da231bf6d3@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v935.3) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:56:49 -0600 References: <3a142e750906131642n4d00469dh779e54da231bf6d3@mail.gmail.com> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.935.3) Cc: FreeBSD-STABLE Mailing List Subject: Re: Let's back out LOADER_ZFS_SUPPORT from STABLE X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:56:51 -0000 On 13 Jun 2009, at 5:42 PM, Paul B. Mahol wrote: > On 6/13/09, Dan Allen wrote: >> I have now proven that the recent post June 8th version of >> >> /usr/src/sys/boot/i386/loader/Makefile >> >> causes catastrophic data loss. >> > > I hardly doubt that such change cause loss of data on entire drive. > There is always old loader to pick up. How do I get to the old loader when the machine boots and immediately stops? There is no ability at this point in the boot process to try and get to the old loader that I know of. Is there a hidden magic key combination that allows this? You are correct that the bulk of the file system is not touched, but the key file partitioning headers get cleared and when you boot off of a DVD -- the only way to get to the system that I know of -- and inspect the file partitioning via whatever means you try, it shows that the root partition is gone. What was your main file system is gone. I learned after many installs that I could NOT do a newfs(8) and the setup program would re-mark things and and files ended up re- appearing. My machine was well backed up so no great loss of data in the end, but it has cost me lots of time to get this figured out. For me the real questions are these: * Why is my system the only one that this happens on? * What makes my machine setup different? * What is the bug in the bootable ZFS loader that munges the partition map? Dan