From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Feb 5 03:48:49 2010 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 03A9A106566C for ; Fri, 5 Feb 2010 03:48:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu) Received: from dc.cis.okstate.edu (dc.cis.okstate.edu [139.78.103.93]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CEAA08FC2D for ; Fri, 5 Feb 2010 03:48:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from dc.cis.okstate.edu (localhost.cis.okstate.edu [127.0.0.1]) by dc.cis.okstate.edu (8.14.2/8.13.8) with ESMTP id o153mJAE031744 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 2010 21:48:33 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu) Message-Id: <201002050348.o153mJAE031744@dc.cis.okstate.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <31742.1265341699.1@dc.cis.okstate.edu> Date: Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:48:19 -0600 From: Martin McCormick Subject: Re: sysinstall and mfs X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:48:49 -0000 Jerry McAllister writes: > I don't understand why you are trying to do your own MFS for this. > You need to be booted to the MFS for it to make any difference and > that is what the install image (from the CD) normally does. If you > just create an MFS and copy sysinstall to it, it will make no > difference in its ability to modify the labels on the system disks. > They are already busy and you would have to reboot to unbusy them What I actually did was to download the mfsbsd tool set which lets you create either an iso image you can burn to a CD or another image that you spray on to the MBR of the hard drive via dd. Either way, the system that comes up is not connected in any way to the hard drive. That is what I thought one had when booting from the CDROM. The only difference is that one is in multiuser mode under mfs and single user mode when booting the CDROM. That difference may be the problem. It just occurred to me that one of the messages you see as sysinstall starts up is that it is probing devices. Since many of those devices are part of mfs, this may be how things go wrong. Sysinstall may see a device that essentially breaks its idea of the hard drive and where it is. I have never been so confused about something that seemed so straight-forward. Thanks for your help. Martin McCormick