ad0 mountable after sysinstall, but invalid from boot mgr / mbr (7.2-R)

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:48:01 -0700, Steve Franks <bahamasfranks at gmail.com> wrote:
> So, I jump back to the liveFS disk, thinking sysinstall zorked the
> disk, but I can mount the disk (ad0s1d) just fine, and see the
> contents of /mnt/boot/kernel and see /mnt/boot/loader* (never seen a
> file with a * in the name, but the one on <livefs>/boot has a * after
> loader too).

The root partition should be /dev/ad0s1a, not ad0s1d.
If it is, specify another boot device for the loader.
Check the examples for "rootdisk" in /boot/defaults/loader.conf.

Never seen a * after (not in) a file name?

It is possible that the * in /mnt/boot/loader is printed
by the ls command which has the ability to indicate file
types with suffixes (* for executables, @ for symlinks,
/ for directories etc.); check if ls has been aliased for
the shell on the live file system, e. g.

	% which ls
	ls:      aliased to ls -FG

See "man ls" for more details. Look, same here:

	% ls /boot/loader
	/boot/loader*

By the way, the output here is colored, but I can't make
the mail message show this. :-) I have setenv'd LSCOLORS
with this value:

	% echo $LSCOLORS
	ExGxdxdxCxDxDxBxBxegeg

It only works on color capable terminals, of course.

So don't mind the *, it's completely normal and intended.



According to your booting problem, check if partitions
have been created correctly, and if not, and if you have
the time, start again and create correct partitions, e. g.

	/dev/ad0s1a on /
	/dev/ad0s1b as swap
	/dev/ad0s1c isn't touched at all ("whole slice")
	/dev/ad0s1d on /tmp
	/dev/ad0s1e on /var
	/dev/ad0s1f on /usr
	/dev/ad0s1g on /home

or whatever layout you prefer. As I mentioned before,
make sure that the booting partition / is a, not d.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...