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Date: Tue, 27 May 2014 07:51:56 -0600 (MDT)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: Janos Dohanics <web@3dresearch.com>
Subject: Re: gpart backup, restore and bootcode
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On Tue, 27 May 2014, Janos Dohanics wrote:

> Hello list members,
>
> Do the commands gpart backup and gpart restore also back up and restore
> the bootcode? The gpart(8) man page says:
>
> "restore   Restore the partition table from a backup previously created
>           by the backup action and read from standard input.  Only the
>           par- tition table is restored.  This action does not affect
>           the con- tent of partitions.  After restoring the partition
>           table and writing bootcode if needed, user data must be
>           restored from backup."
>
> I read this section as "yes" - is this correct?

To my knowledge, no.  The bootcode is separate from the partition data, 
and not included with gpart backup.

> I assume "yes" since my bootcode is embedded having been added using 
> "gpart bootcode -b ..." and thus "embed-ded in the partitioning 
> scheme's metadata".
>
> Is there a way to show/verify if bootcode is written to the disk?

Hmm.  'file -s /dev/ada0', although I think there is no way to tell when 
that bootcode was updated.