Making a disk bootable...

[Ian Freislich]

Peter McGarvey wrote:
> * Ian Freislich <ianf at za.uu.net> [2003-07-14 13:58:39 BST]:
> > Hi
> > 
> > This might sound like a really simple question, but what used to
> > work no longer does.  How do you partition, label and make a disk
> > bootable?
> 
> And this may sound like a really stupid answer, but have you considered
> using /stand/sysinstall?

Yes.  See paragraph 4.

Aside, I'd like to be able to do this from the command line anyway.

> 
> > I've used fdisk to create one slice (da0s1).  I then used bsdlabel
> > to make make the partitions a, b, e and f.  Then to put the boot
> > block on 'disklabel -B /dev/da0s1' - if I 'disklabel -B /dev/da0'
> > it trashes the label.  Then I copy all my filesystems off the IDE
> > drive I'm trying to rid myself of onto the SCSI disk.  When I tell
> > the BIOS to boot off SCSI, it complains 'Missing Operating System'.
> > 
> > So I try to dd the first 512 bytes of ad0 onto da0.  The BIOS now
> > doesn't complain about a missing operating system, it just hangs
> > and the label on da0 is trashed.
> > 
> > So, after about 7 cycles of fdisk, label, newfs, dump, restore,
> # boot SCSI die 'Missing Operating System', boot IDE I give up and
> # try to use sysinstall compiled on July 9 from sources of the same
> # thinking 'surely the installer must be able to make a disk bootable'.
> # It can't either.  BTW, it doesn't even make the filesystems when
> # you 'w'rite the changes in the label editor, even though it say's
> > it's makeing the filesystems.  So for the moment, I have to keep
> > the IDE disk just for the MBR and type '1:da(0,a)/boot/loader' which
> > is a bit inconvenient.
> > 
> > Does anyone have any suggestions short of putting the disks I want
> > labeled in a -STABLE box (which will be a major PITA since my -STABLE
> > box doesn't have SCSI and the controler is on-board on my -CURRENT
> > box)?
> > 
> > Ian
> > _______________________________________________
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> 
> -- 
> TTFN, FNORD
> 
> Peter McGarvey
> Freelance FreeBSD Hacker
> (will work for bandwidth)
>