From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Sep 13 22:42:25 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B445C16A41F for ; Tue, 13 Sep 2005 22:42:25 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from gayn.winters@bristolsystems.com) Received: from bristolsystems.com (h-68-167-239-98.lsanca54.covad.net [68.167.239.98]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BF8C243D53 for ; Tue, 13 Sep 2005 22:42:23 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from gayn.winters@bristolsystems.com) Received: from workdog ([192.168.1.201]) by bristolsystems.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id j8DMQOn06362; Tue, 13 Sep 2005 15:26:24 -0700 From: "Gayn Winters" To: "'Alex Zbyslaw'" Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 15:26:10 -0700 Message-ID: <014501c5b8b2$2a67c3a0$c901a8c0@workdog> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.4024 In-Reply-To: <432747DF.5020204@dial.pipex.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 Importance: Normal Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: RE: Fixing a MBR (and more) that ??? trashed X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: gayn.winters@bristolsystems.com List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 22:42:25 -0000 > -----Original Message----- > From: Alex Zbyslaw [mailto:xfb52@dial.pipex.com] > Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 2:43 PM > To: gayn.winters@bristolsystems.com > Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org > Subject: Re: Fixing a MBR (and more) that ??? trashed > > > Gayn Winters wrote: > > >Regarding avoidance: > >I would still like to add additional hard drives to my dual boot systems. > >Is there any safe way to do this? > > > Why do you think it's not safe to add hard drives? It doesn't seem "safe" if Windows blows away the multiboot MBR that FreeBSD so carefully made! Windows overwriting the MBR seems to be the reason people recommend loading Windows before loading FreeBSD, which I do. I just never realized that this problem would come back to bite me when I added another disk drive. > My own policy is to have every disk in my system capable of booting > FreeBSD, some more than once (mostly to allow easy upgrading between > major revisions, or to allow me to try out 6.X or whatever), > but even a disk mostly given over to , say, XP, will have a bit at the end that > boots BSD. Doesn't solve everything, but even if one disk goes > ka-blooey I'll be able to boot something more than a fixit > shell (I hope :-)). > > My new policy is to have a hardcopy of fstab, df and all > bsdlabels for all partitions... being printed even as this email is being sent :-) > > --Alex > I need to be able to operate on my clients' disks. Sometimes I need a tool that runs under Windows, and other times I need a tool that runs under FBSD. This doesn't permit adding an OS to their disks. A bootable external USB drive may be the ideal "Fixit" drive ... Of course, I'd rather figure out how not to have the problem at all! It would be nice if FreeBSD could write out whatever changes to the MBR and the partition/slice tables that the new hardware required so that Windows didn't feel obligated to "fix" things. Thanks for the help, -gayn