Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 20:37:48 -0800 (PST) From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> To: bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans) Cc: bde@zeta.org.au, current@freefall.freebsd.org, darrylo@sr.hp.com, jkh@time.cdrom.com Subject: Re: 2.2-ALPHA install failure Message-ID: <199611250437.UAA01423@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> In-Reply-To: <199611250139.MAA11746@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from Bruce Evans at "Nov 25, 96 12:39:36 pm"
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> >> If you run a third party fdisk program on the disk, then the disk isn't > >> dedicated. > > > >Dedicating one drive, does not mean dedicating all drives, Microsoft's > >install procedures are known for there ``I want the whole world'' phylosophy > >and can cause people great pain if installed with on another disk in > >the same systems as one of the FreeBSD ``bogus'' partitioned disks. > > Surely this is only caused by a installer error? I haven't used W95, > but older versions of W can be installed in any directory on any hard > disk and don't seem to touch other disks or directories (except for the > usual things in the root directory). No, this is not a user error, this is the automagic of Windows 95 and the design of the Microsoft installation tools. If it finds unclaimed disk space per the MBR it will claim it, fdisk it, and format it for you, all without asking you if it is okay to do this. This may have been fixed in Win95/SR2. I think the rational Microsoft gave me was something like ``Well, this is a PnP OS, and that means it is suppose to automatically set up things for you. If it didn't do this then the user would have to manually fdisk and format the partition.'' I responeded with a ``well, at least you should ask the user before making such an assumption about the contents of the MBR.'' > > >hold in the real world that I have to deal in (and yes, I had some > >customers get there FreeBSD disks totally spammed by a Microsoft product > >when I had left the fdisk 50K block MBR on it, never never again shall > >AAI ship such a system. (2 year old company policy now...)) > > Well, my first rule was to only use dedicated disks if you know what > you're doing. All administrators of the system need to know too. > The dedicated partition table is probably always invalid because the > FreeBSD slice contains the MBR and normal slices never contain the MBR. > Most third party fdisks seem to have no problems with it, but you have > to be careful with new versions. I have shipped 100's of systems with ``dedicated disks'' and every single one of them had a valid MBR as far as start and size. Every OS I have seen and worked with obey these two parameters, infact they favor them over the start CHS, end CHS. I am not so concerned about bogus C/H/S values in the MBR as I am about start/size values. -- Rod Grimes rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Accurate Automation, Inc. Reliable computers for FreeBSD
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199611250437.UAA01423>