Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 07:06:49 +0000 From: "Pokala, Ravi" <rpokala@panasas.com> To: "borjam@sarenet.es" <borjam@sarenet.es>, "freebsd-fs@freebsd.org" <freebsd-fs@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: BIOS booting from disks > 2TB Message-ID: <D0916F70.124566%rpokala@panasas.com>
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Hi Borja,
I'd like to clarify something important - you don't need to boot using
UEFI to use GPT for partitioning. You *do* need to use GPT to have
partitions larger than 2^32 sectors (2TiB for drives w/ 512B sectors, or
16TiB for drives w/ 4KB sectors).
When you perform your installation, just make sure to select the GPT
option for partitioning. The installer (either `bsdinstall' (for stock
FreeBSD), or `pc-sysinstall' (for PC-BSD / FreeNAS)) should create both
primary (near start-of-disk) and backup (at end-of-disk) GPT tables, and
install the appropriate bootstrap code in the proper locations.
Hope that helps,
Ravi
--------
Details, for those who are interested:
The firmware reads LBA 0 to find the Master Boot Record (MBR). In both
cases:
- the first 446 bytes are executable code
- the next 64 bytes are the slice table
- the last 2 bytes are the MBR signature
----
In the slice/label partitioning scheme (some of the details might be
slightly off, but the big picture is right):
- the 446-byte executable code [mbr.s] reads the slice table, finds
the first-stage bootloader [boot0.S], and executes it
- the first-stage bootloader finds the second-stage bootloader
[boot1.S], and executes it
- the second-stage bootloader reads the disklabel, finds the
third-stage bootloader [boot2.c], and executes it
- the third-stage bootloader reads the UFS filesystem, finds the
`loader' binary, and executes it
----
In the case of GPT, the slice-table portion of the MBR contains a single
slice entry which covers the whole disk. This protects a non-GPT-aware
slicer from trying to add slices. For this reason, it is referred to as
the Protective MBR (PMBR).
In the GPT scheme (I'm more confident about this):
- the 446-byte executable code [pmbr.s] finds the GPT Header
- based on the GPT Header, the PMBR finds the GPT Table
- based on the GPT Table, the PMBR finds the GPT bootstrap [gptldr.S,
gptboot.c], and executes it
- the GPT bootstrap reads the UFS filesystem, finds the `loader'
binary, and executes it
Note that, by not having to find and parse a separate disklabel in
addition to a partition table, the GPT bootstrap actually has fewer stages.
--------
Source, for those who are *really* interested:
[mbr.s] - sys/boot/i386/mbr
[boot0.S] - sys/boot/i386/boot0
[boot1.S] - sys/boot/i386/boot2 # Yes, boot1 is in the boot2 directory
[boot2.c] - sys/boot/i386/boot2
[pmbr.s] - sys/boot/i386/pmbr
[gptldr.S, gptboot.c] - sys/boot/i386/gptboot
--rpokala
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