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Date:      Mon, 9 Apr 2001 18:58:00 -0700
From:      Danny Howard <dannyman@tellme.com>
To:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   fdisk & disklabel dont work!
Message-ID:  <20010409185759.N59290@tellme.com>

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Okay, so, I'm BTX booting diskless workstation on a 4.2-R system with two SCSI
drives and an Adaptec controller.

I can very very very easily install a systerm in dangerously dedicated mode as
follows:
disklabel -r -w da0 auto
(Then write the disklabel the way I want, newfs everything, be done with it.)

This is great, except the system will then refuse to boot.  PXE boot crashes
and SCSI boot hangs, and the explanation I can find is that the Adaptec
controller is pissed off about the dangerously dedicated mode and ends up
diving by zero.

Okay, so let's do it the right way.

Nearly two weeks later, I'M STILL STUCK.

I've read about MBRs and why disklabel can't label an fdisk partition, but
maybe now it can, but first you have to dd anywhere between one and 128 blocks
on the disk before the magic incantations work properly ...

Here's what I try to do:

fdisk -I da0
disklabel -r -w da0s1 auto

Okay.  Any time after the very first fdisk when booting up, I get kernel
messages about how da0 and da0s1 have no disk labels, and nothing works.  I
have tried zeroing out any number of sectors, various variations of fdisk,
disklabel ... dd'ing the start of a working system on to the system in
question ... nowhere!  Nada!  AUGHGHGHG!!!!  Disklabel JUST WON'T FUNCTION!!!
(I can always read fdisk with accuracy, even if the kernel is spitting out log
messages about how there is no label.  Why should fdisk da0 care if da0s1 has
a label?)

I have tried low-level SCSI format of disks, commands on the second disk ...
not even disklabel -r -w da0 auto works any more ... always the same flavor of
errors.  For example:

# disklabel -r -w da0s1 auto
/kernel: da0: cannot find label (no disk label)
/kernel: da0: cannot find label (no disk label)
/kernel: da0s1: cannot find label (no disk label)
/kernel: da0s1: cannot find label (no disk label)
/kernel: da0: cannot find label (no disk label)
/kernel: da0: cannot find label (no disk label)
/kernel: da0s1: cannot find label (no disk label)
/kernel: da0s1: cannot find label (no disk label)
disklabel: ioctl DIOCGDINFO: Invalid argument
disklabel: auto: unknown disk type

Anyone has any idea?  Maybe there's something really subtle that I am doing
wrong?

Thanks,
-danny

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