From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 12 09:04:02 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: stable@FreeBSD.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BB1A016A40F for ; Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:04:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jrhett@svcolo.com) Received: from kininvie.sv.svcolo.com (kininvie.sv.svcolo.com [64.13.135.12]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A51C513C469 for ; Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:04:02 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jrhett@svcolo.com) Received: from [172.16.12.22] (covad-jrhett.meer.net [209.157.140.144]) (authenticated bits=0) by kininvie.sv.svcolo.com (8.13.8/8.13.4) with ESMTP id l0C941GZ092145; Fri, 12 Jan 2007 01:04:02 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jrhett@svcolo.com) Message-ID: <45A74F01.7040200@svcolo.com> Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 01:04:01 -0800 From: Jo Rhett Organization: Silicon Valley Colocation User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 (Windows/20061207) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Marcel Moolenaar References: <45A5FD8A.6080409@svcolo.com> <2918081F-D376-410B-B6FD-42BDD3323575@svcolo.com> <20070111213444.GB17185@zone3000.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: undef - SENDER Whitelisted (jrhett@svcolo.com: Mail from user authenticated via SMTP AUTH allowed always) X-CanItPRO-Stream: default X-Canit-Stats-ID: 43702 - 52db6dbcd81e X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . roaringpenguin . com) on 64.13.135.12 Cc: stable@FreeBSD.org, Nikolay Pavlov Subject: Re: 2.4TB disk - MBR and GPT coexist? 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: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:04:02 -0000 Marcel Moolenaar wrote: > > On Jan 11, 2007, at 1:56 PM, Jo Rhett wrote: > >> Since we're going to be stuck with old BIOSes for a long time after >> 2TB is a cheap disk drive at [store], is anyone considering doing the >> work to make GPT co-exist with an MBR block? > > It is already possible for them to coexist. It's not uncommon in the > industry to use MBR partitions even though the disk has GPT. The > point is that you need to tools to avoid making a mess. Ideally you > want the MBR partitions mirrored by the GPT so that the kernel only > has to deal with GPT. The BIOS will use the MBR to boot. > > The gpt(8) tool can actually be used to set this up. You partition > the disk with fdisk, but only for the boot partition. Then you run > gpt(8) to migrate the MBR into a GPT, specifying the -s option so > that you get a single GPT partition overlapping the MBR slice. After > that you restore the MBR partition. Now you can use GPT to define > a big partition. The kernel will use GPT and since you used -s when > you migrate the MBR, the kernel will create device nodes with the > same name as it would for the MBR partitions... That is exactly what I was hoping to find, but was unable to be certain that it was possible from what I saw in the searches. To make this into a step-by-step, what do you mean by "restore the MBR partition" ? From backup, or...? -- Jo Rhett senior geek Silicon Valley Colocation