From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 15 18:03:44 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 37D011065676 for ; Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:03:44 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED00C8FC14 for ; Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:03:43 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-195-71-245.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.71.245]) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id BADF11DDE5; Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:03:42 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id n9FI3gCP001793; Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:03:42 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:03:41 +0200 From: Polytropon To: PJ Message-Id: <20091015200341.a8dbad85.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <4AD748B5.8020504@videotron.ca> References: <4AD74198.9010301@videotron.ca> <4AD748B5.8020504@videotron.ca> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: booting from wrong disk X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:03:44 -0000 On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:07:17 -0400, PJ wrote: > I see from the boot process that this should fix it... > # fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 ad4 > but... > how do I get this onto the right disk? If I boot from ad4 or ad12 and > change the mbr, then it will be the ad12 that will be booting from ad4 > and vice versa... or have I got it wrong? But in the end, I suppose it > really doesn't matter, or does it? The "active" flag on the partition tells the MBR loader from which device to boot. In other words, the FIRST device that is market as "active" will be booted. If you have, for example, ad4 ad ad12 in your system, and ad4 is detected first, then it will be booted, no matter if ad12 is marked "active", too. Of course, ad4's boot loader can refer to another device as bootdev (booting device), but that's out of scope for now. If you have two disks ad4 and ad12, both marked "active", and you exchange them physically, boot order will change, too. A similar setting could involve things like a mix of ATA, SCSI and SATA disks. Again, who comes first will be booted - but as I said, only if the device is marked "active"; if not, it will be ignored. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...