Date: Sat, 23 Dec 1995 19:45:35 -0500 From: mitch@carroll.com (Mitch Friedman) To: questions@freebsd.org, zeleps@hol.gr Cc: support@cdrom.com, info@freebsd.org Subject: Trouble with installing FREEBSD Message-ID: <199512240045.TAA05723@carroll.com>
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Hey, I tried to install FREEBSD 2.1 and got into a LOT of trouble!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a 250M C-disk which is my boot-up dos disk and a 1.08G d-disk, that I use desire to use for both unix and dos since it is big enough to hold dos based program, as well as unix stuff. I used presizer, v.1.1.2 to partition the d-disk into a 600 mb Dos partition and a 400 mb non-Dos partition, for UNIX-FreeBSD. I admit I was a little to ambitious and wanted to load the bin, gnu, games, and other source files. Obviously the 400mb would not be enough. But Freebsd doesn't care, like any other Unix o/s, and tried to load it. Of course it wrote over into some parts of the Dos partition (how do I know this...see below!)-no not a internet smile a real exclamation pt and a parenthesis- When the Freebsd installation program realized that it ran out of space, it finally crapped out. So, I chose the quit option...what else could I do? Meanwhile, there is an incomplete installation of UNIX on my d-disk (part of it in an inconsistant state since it probably wrote into the Dos partition). So, the quit option begins the disk resynching process and began to reboot the pc. My pc did not reboot properly! No boot manager, no dos, no Unix...NOTHING!!!!!! Just an error message stating that computer could not load the o/s. It wasn't trying to reboot into dos, it was trying to reboot into unix, but couldn't because the installation was not complete. Anyway, I rebooted with a dos diskette and guess what?!? My d-disk was gone! I checked with fdisk and presizer to see what the hell was going on with my d-disk Well, my 1.08G d-disk turned into a 507 mb d-disk, in which only 478.5 mb could be reconfigured or formatted into a d-disk and 28.5 could be reconfiged to an extended dos partition (weird, huh?). The remaining 580 or so mb is an incomplete installation of unix, in which my computer believes is a bootable partition with a complete version of an o/s. Anyway, I spent six hours trying to recover my @$%@$!!~#%$^&@$%&$ d-disk. I could not regain the lost partition with presizer or fdisk! Re-formatting did squat! Until I took the disk utilities that came with my d-disk, re-initialized the d-disk, powered my pc down and up, reformat the d-disk. Then and only then was I able to recover my d-disk in total!!!! However, since I had to re-initialize and re-format my disk I subsequently blew-away some important programs, such as TRUMPET and EUDORA and other internet goodies that I painstakingly down-loaded. I spent a good portion of the night redown-loading this stuff!! This should not have happened!! Is there a back-out or fail-safe utility that can be used in case something like this happens, in which I can recover my disk with out destroying it. Is there a switch that can be used with presizer to look at the total disk, instead of the dos partition? Is there a switch or utility that can be used with the installation that can warn me when I attempt to choose something that will take up to much space on my disk? HELP!!!! I WOULD REALLLLY LIKE TO RUN THIS THING, BUT I WILL NOT LOAD IT UNTIL I AM CONFIDENT THAT I WILL NOT DAMAGE MY COMPUTER, DISK, OR SANITY!!!! OTHERWISE, I WILL HAVE TO RETURN THIS PIECE OF SOFTWARE AND ASK FOR A FULL REFUND!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!SOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mitch Friedman
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