backup drive bootabel

[Noah]

> 
> 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.)



OKay Matthew,

I am still a little inclear here.  do I need to chnage what BIOS thinks.

this is the first interactive prompt that I receive when running the fdisk
command:

so I said no:


---- snip ---

#  fdisk -B -b /boot/mbr -i da
fdisk: cannot open disk /dev/da: No such file or directory
typhoon# 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]

--- snip ----



**** then do I say yes here?


-- snip ---

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]


--- snip ----


and no to the rest of the partitions/slices prompts?


Thanks in advance,

Noah



> 
> > the disk is a little bit of  a different size with different partition sizes.
> >  woudl that Make a difference.  what esle can I check here?
> 
> The disk geometry won't make any difference to the boot block.
> fdisk(8) will read in the current partition table and give you the
> opportunity to modify things, but don't do that unless you really do
> intend to wipe the disk contents.
> 
> 	Cheers,
> 
> 	Matthew
> 
> -- 
> Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
>                                                       Savill Way
> PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
> Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 
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