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Date:      Sat, 20 Dec 2003 12:11:24 -0800
From:      "Noah" <admin2@enabled.com>
To:        Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk>, Noah <admin2@enabled.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: backup drive bootabel
Message-ID:  <20031220200516.M74299@enabled.com>
In-Reply-To: <20031126152833.GA7575@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk>
References:  <20031112154647.M33110@enabled.com> <3FB25926.2000109@rtl.org> <20031112171905.M63476@enabled.com> <20031112182055.GC24384@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> <20031112223108.M65151@enabled.com> <20031113100504.GB33477@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> <20031126143823.M26427@enabled.com> <20031126152833.GA7575@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk>

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> 
> To deal with a standard MBR, you have to use fdisk(8).  Try:
> 
>     # fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr -i da1
> 
> This will walk you through the current settings interactively, 
> letting you generate a slice table, change the active slice and 
> rewrite the boot code.
> 
> Of course, just to confuse you, fdisk(8) will talk all about
> "partitions", but be assured it actually means "slices" in *BSD speak.
> (partitions are generated within each slice using disklabel(8) which 
> is a BSD specific thing.  slices are generic for practically all 
> OSes that can run on the IA32 architecture from DOS onwards.)



Matthew,

okay I think I see what fdisk is wanting.  I wanted to run it by you before i
did anything:

here is the prompts I filles out.  some prompts do have anything appear there
i just hit return for the default value.  Do I need to change the active
partition back to anything after running the fdisk Program?  I still want to
boot from /dev/da0 for the time being.  I just want /dev/da1 drive ready for
booting if /dev/da0 fails.  Am I on the proper course here?


--- snip ---

# fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr -i da1
******* Working on device /dev/da1 *******
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Do you want to change our idea of what BIOS thinks ? [n]
Media sector size is 512
Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
Information from DOS bootblock is:
The data for partition 1 is:
sysid 165,(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
    start 63, size 143363997 (70001 Meg), flag 80 (active)
        beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
        end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63
Do you want to change it? [n]
The data for partition 2 is:
<UNUSED>
Do you want to change it? [n]
The data for partition 3 is:
<UNUSED>
Do you want to change it? [n]
The data for partition 4 is:
<UNUSED>
Do you want to change it? [n]
Partition 1 is marked active
Do you want to change the active partition? [n] y
Supply a decimal value for "active partition" [1]
Are you happy with this choice [n] y
Do you want to change the boot code? [n] y

We haven't changed the partition table yet.  This is your last chance.
parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
cylinders=8924 heads=255 sectors/track=63 (16065 blks/cyl)

Information from DOS bootblock is:
1: sysid 165,(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
    start 63, size 143363997 (70001 Meg), flag 80 (active)
        beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
        end: cyl 1023/ head 254/ sector 63
2: <UNUSED>
3: <UNUSED>
4: <UNUSED>
Should we write new partition table? [n] y

--- snip ---


Happy Holidays,
- noah



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