From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Jul 12 10: 8:46 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx01-a.netapp.com (mx01-a.netapp.com [198.95.226.53]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C56837B403 for ; Thu, 12 Jul 2001 10:08:42 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from boshea@netapp.com) Received: from frejya.corp.netapp.com (frejya.corp.netapp.com [10.10.20.91]) by mx01-a.netapp.com (8.11.1/8.11.1/NTAP-1.2) with ESMTP id f6CH8fK15435 for ; Thu, 12 Jul 2001 10:08:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shaolin.hq.netapp.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by frejya.corp.netapp.com (8.11.1/8.11.1/NTAP-1.2) with ESMTP id f6CH8fD17416 for ; Thu, 12 Jul 2001 10:08:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from boshea@localhost) by shaolin.hq.netapp.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id KAA14635 for freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org; Thu, 12 Jul 2001 10:08:41 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from boshea) Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 10:08:40 -0700 From: "Brian O'Shea" To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Making an existing VMware virtual disk "dangerously dedicated" Message-ID: <20010712100840.G401@shaolin.hq.netapp.com> Reply-To: boshea@netapp.com Mail-Followup-To: Brian O'Shea , freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.4i Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Hello, I have installed FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE in a VMware virtual machine (more background information[1] at the end of this message) and I've found that I can not boot the system without first booting from CD and then loading the kernel from the virtual disk. If I try to boot from the virtual disk, it hangs after printing: F1 FreeBSD Default: F1 (Yes, I tried pressing F1) At this point, the only option is to reset the system, boot from CD, load the kernel from the virtual disk, and boot: BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.01 Console: internal video/keyboard BIOS drive A: is disk0 BIOS drive B: is disk1 BIOS drive C: is disk2 BIOS 636kB/130048kB available memory FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 0.8 (jkh@bento.FreeBSD.org, Mon Nov 20 11:41:23 GMT 2000) - Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt. Booting [kernel] in 9 seconds... Type '?' for a list of commands, 'help' for more detailed help. ok load disk2s1a:/kernel ok boot So, I would like to try skipping this stage and making the virtual disk fully dedicated (i.e. no boot manager). I looked this up in the handbook and it gave some instructions, which I tried. It didn't seem to work: (from ) # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ad2 count=2 # disklabel /dev/ad2 | disklabel -B -R -r ad2 /dev/stdin Note: I wouldn't be doing the above if I didn't have a backup from which I knew I could restore my system. The disklabel(8) man page was also helpful, however I couldn't figure out how to use disklabel to make an existing disk fully dedicated. If there is no way to do this, I will re-install the system. This is a good option, although it is difficult to get it to work because it usually panics while probing devices. Any help is much appreciated. Regards, -brian 1. Background: Intel Pentium III 700MHz VMware GSX Server 1.0.1 Build 999 running on Linux kernel 2.2.14-5.0 FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE installed in a virtual machine Disk type is VMware virtual disk (i.e. not a physical partition) -- Brian O'Shea To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message