misc/133493: 'gpt boot' should mark the slice in the protective mbr as active

[Christopher Key]

>Number:         133493
>Category:       misc
>Synopsis:       'gpt boot' should mark the slice in the protective mbr as active
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Wed Apr 08 17:00:09 UTC 2009
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Christopher Key
>Release:        FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE-p3 amd64
>Organization:
>Environment:
System: FreeBSD chacal.wzl33 7.1-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE-p3 #5: Mon Apr 6 23:58:47 BST 2009 root at chacal.wzl33:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/CHACAL amd64


	
>Description:
GPT partitioned disks have a protective mbr in the first sector of the disk, containing code to boot from the disk on non-EFI systems, along with an entry for a single slice covering the entire disk.  Some BIOSes, e.g. Intel DQ965GF, will refuse to attempt to boot from a disk without an active slice.  A workaround is to mark the slice as active after installing installing the pmbr, i.e.

gpt boot /dev/...
fdisk -a /dev/... (set slice 1 as active)

It would however be preferable for gpt to do this itself, either by default, or by adding a suitable command line option.
>How-To-Repeat:
>Fix:
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: