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Date:      Tue, 4 Apr 1995 21:57:46 -0500 (CDT)
From:      bob@obiwan.pmr.com (Bob Willcox)
To:        bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans)
Cc:        bde@zeta.org.au, freebsd-current@freefall.cdrom.com
Subject:   Re: Proper procedure to partition/label disk now?
Message-ID:  <m0rwLHu-000300C@obiwan.pmr.com>
In-Reply-To: <199504041445.AAA24580@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from "Bruce Evans" at Apr 5, 95 00:45:57 am

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Bruce Evans wrote:
> 
> >> For using the whole disk for FreeBSD, just run disklabel.  The man
> >> page may actually be complete now that the 'd' partition isn't
> >> special.  This assumes that the disk really is clean, without
> >> misleading junk in the partition table.
> 
> >Ok, I've done that.  When I mount the filesystem (after having
> >newfs'd it) I get the following messages:
> 
> >Apr  4 08:14:27 luke /kernel: sd2: invalid primary partition table: no magic
> >Apr  4 08:14:27 luke /kernel: sd2: raw partition size != slice size
> >Apr  4 08:14:27 luke /kernel: sd2: start 0, end 782599, size 782600
> >Apr  4 08:14:27 luke /kernel: sd2c: start 0, end 782335, size 782336
> 
> These messages are only warnings.  Should they be removed?  The first one

I fear that they are going to be a concern to users as they convert
from 1.1.5 or 2.0 to 2.1.  Lots of folks will think something is
broken when they see these messages.

> says that there is apparently no partition table.  `disklabel -B' would
> write a suitable partition table.  The message should never be printed
> for bootable disks.  The last 3 say that you made the raw partition
> size smaller than the disk size.  This is a strange thing to do because
> the raw partition is supposed to cover the whole disk.  There is no
> reason to round it to a cylinder boundary.

I did the ``disklabel -B'' and got rid of the first message.  The
disklabel was created in the pre-2.1 style using the ficticious
geometry popular during that era.  What would really be nice would
be a facility for labeling disks similar to what sysinstall provides.
The manual calculations are a real pain.

> 
> >Here is the disklabel for the drive:
> 
> ># /dev/rsd2c:
> >...
> >sectors/unit: 782600
> >...
> >4 partitions:
> >#        size   offset    fstype   [fsize bsize bps/cpg]
> >  a:   782336        0    4.2BSD     1024  8192    16 	# (Cyl.    0 - 381)
> >  c:   782336        0    unused        0     0       	# (Cyl.    0 - 381)
> >  d:   782336        0    unused        0     0       	# (Cyl.    0 - 381)
> 
> The sectors/unit value isn't rounded.  Good.  Perhaps it should be checked
> instead of the 'c' partition size.  No, I just remembered why not.  Old
> labels have to be converted, and the sectors/unit value is guaranteed
> to be wrong (being for the whole disk ond not for the BSD slice) except
> when there is only one slice, so the 'c' partition size has to be trusted.
> 
> The 'd' partition shouldn't be necessary.

Yeah, this is an artifact of the disktab entry I used to create the label.


-- 
Bob Willcox
bob@obiwan.pmr.com (or obiwan%bob@uunet.uu.net)
Austin, TX



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