Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2015 19:07:56 +0000 From: John McDonnell <mcdonnjd@pcam.org> To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: POS system trashing hard drives during install Message-ID: <BLUPR07MB3216D5F435ACE02480752CBBAE40@BLUPR07MB321.namprd07.prod.outlook.com> In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.20.1512172208100.4409@wonkity.com> References: <BLUPR07MB321C9B805585AB5A6456D0ABAE00@BLUPR07MB321.namprd07.prod.outlook.com> <alpine.BSF.2.20.1512172208100.4409@wonkity.com>
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> -----Original Message----- > On Thu, 17 Dec 2015, John McDonnell wrote: >=20 > It took some looking to find this description of the problem in the post. Sorry, I do tend to ramble on a bit. > Some systems do stupid things based on what they find on the hard disk. > Lenovo and IBM before them did this, for example. Still do, in some case= s. It > is not just a GPT thing, they did stupid things with MBR partitions also.= The I completely forgot about this. I have run across that issue with the IBM/L= enovo Thinkpads before. When imaging the 300 some laptops the first time, w= e ran into issues because it wasn't copying some part of the boot blocks an= d I then learned about the /ib switch in Ghost which solved the issue with = those laptops. (And also later with DeepFreeze.) Hopefully we can get this = figured out so I can use FreeBSD on these systems. > idea that old systems can't boot from GPT is incorrect. GPT has the PMBR= , a > backwards-compatible MBR booting mechanism. I actually did know this, but conveniently had forgotten about that. So it = shouldn't be an issue with GPT itself, except that the system itself is pro= bably looking for something specific in the MBR or on the disk... > Some systems require a system partition for the BIOS. >=20 > Given that this is a custom system, there might be some kind of security > information stored on the drive. It is looking like this might be the case. I had a chance to install FreeBS= D onto another hard drive from another machine and had it up and running an= d then brought it over to one of the same model POS machines I have sitting= in my office and tried to boot it up and it just locks up after detecting = the hard drives and won't enter the BIOS. > If it were me, I would use gpart to look at the partitioning on the XP dr= ive. It > is likely MBR, but the number, type, and size of partitions could be a cl= ue. The XP drive is definitely MBR and not GPT. I should be able to get the inf= o on that drive from gpart a little later this afternoon if things stay qui= et. Since this is locking up again like my old drives were, I'm wondering if I = pop it back into the other PC if it will recognize it again or if it will f= ail. I'm hopeful that it will recognize it as that would mean that my vario= us 80 GB drives may still be alive and just need a better interface than th= e IDE to USB adapter I was using at home. (I had been planning on using tho= se hard drives in a couple of Playstation 2s.) Thank you for your help so far. :) --=20 John McDonnell mcdonnjd@pcam.org
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