convert from scsi to IDE

[J.D. Bronson]

At 10:58 AM 12/01/2004, David Kelly wrote:
> > umm..I have a freebsd install on a SCSI drive
> > and I need to convert this to IDE.
> >
> > I have an issue with the fact that no matter what I do, if I install and
> > IDE drive - the BIOS will always try to boot off of the IDE drive.
>
>Ah! The "wonders" of the committee-designed PC architecture.
>
>You say nothing of your motherboard BIOS or SCSI interface. The key as to
>which drive is booted lies there. Then again there are ways around it.
>
>Boot a FreeBSD Install CD and prepare the IDE drive. Most importantly
>partition and install the bootmanager. Flush the work out to the drive.
>Then on reboot item F5 should transfer the boot to the next drive. If the
>next drive has the same FreeBSD boot manager it too will have an F5, and
>so on until one gets back to the first where the loop continues. Each
>drive remembers the prior use so after 5 or 10 seconds the first will
>transfer to the next on your next reboot.
>
>I suggest that you take this opportunity to clean up your system,
>document, and update. Install a fresh 4.10 or 5.3 on the IDE drive. Take
>notes while you do so. Once the FreeBSD things have been dealt with on the
>IDE drive, mount the SCSI (if not already) and start copying your known
>important stuff. Use the old drive as a reference for which ports need to
>be installed. Take notes. The old drive is always there for things you
>missed, and you *will* miss some things. Thats why you are taking notes.
>At some point in the future you may have to rebuild the machine and not
>have the original drive as a reference.
>
>With the FreeBSD boot manager on the IDE drive you can painlessly reboot
>to either your new IDE or old SCSI installation. At most /etc/fstab needs
>touchup on each.

Thanks for the tips. I have a full fresh 5.3 install with all my tweaks and 
personality installed on the scsi. I am dumping to tape tonight.
What I might do is toss 2 IDE drives in there...do an install (mini) on the 
1...get it up and running and then run /stand/sysinstall on the 2nd drive 
and set it up, format it and then mount it. Then I can restore from tape 
onto the 2nd drive too.

I did that last year when I lost a hard drive :)

thanks again.



-- 
J.D. Bronson
Aurora Health Care // Information Services // Milwaukee, WI USA
Office: 414.978.8282 // Email: jd at aurora.org // Pager: 414.314.8282