Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 00:20:04 -0800 (PST) From: David Muir Sharnoff <muir@idiom.com> To: freebsd-bugs Subject: Re: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable Message-ID: <199601230820.AAA14164@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR conf/963; it has been noted by GNATS. From: David Muir Sharnoff <muir@idiom.com> To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 00:10:29 -0800 * I don't really know how to make it more explicit that this is * dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. Please, submit * a better warning text... we failed to find one. What you are warning against is that it doesn't work with other operating systems. It also needs to warn that it cannot be used with the bootmgr. * > That's fine. If I can't use my friendly neighboorhood boot selector, * > then it should either mention that too or not let me. * * What the heck do you wanna use a boot selector for if the *entire* * disk is dedicated? The BSD label starts at sector 0, so there's no * more room for a fancy boot selector. Choosing which disk to boot off of. * The usage of a boot selector is not even offered for the regular * sequence of doing things (the menu is bypassed if ``dangerously * dedicated'' has been selected). * * This option is really only intended for people who don't care for * anything else than BSD, but therefore do not understand why they had * to undergo major hassles in tweaking their brain for a disk * ``geometry'' that was never really important again for them. * * As i wrote: please submit a better text. Either it wasn't bypassed or a different boot manager wasn't written. As far as I know the problems I had were because the boot selector didn't work. I didn't do anything special to install it, but there was an old one already there. If a special boot loader must be used with a disk that isn't using slices, then that boot loader needs to be installed! I've always had trouble getting the boot stuff work right because I insist on installing onto sd1. I really an easy way to add boot selectors and boot blocks onto other disks and partitions. Linux's LILO is a bit more flexible and I might use that as my primary boot selector if I could get it to work. -Dave
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