bsdinstall ZFS and MBR not working

[dteske at FreeBSD.org]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kai Kockro [mailto:k.kockro at myphotobook.de]
> Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2014 12:06 AM
> To: Warren Block
> Cc: freebsd-sysinstall at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: bsdinstall ZFS and MBR not working
> 
> Ok,
> 
> got it.
> 
> Normal MBR install, then go to shell. Save the gpart partitions to
bootpool (
> gpart backup ada0 and ada0s1 ). Reboot and go to LiveCD.
> Import bootpool, recreate gpart partitions with gpart restore. Recreate
the
> bootblocks ( gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot0 ada0 && dd if=/boot/zfsboot
> of=/dev/ada0s1 count=1 && dd if=/boot/zfsboot of=/dev/ada0s1a skip=1
> seek=1024 ). Reboot and its working.
> 
> Maybe gpart is using pending mode in zfsboot script, i will look later.
> 
> Thanks to Warren ( i will try the gpt hints, too )!
> 
> Best,
> Kai
> 
> Am 23.04.2014 15:27, schrieb Warren Block:
> > On Wed, 23 Apr 2014, Kai Kockro wrote:
> >
> >> i wanted to install 10-RELEASE on my Lenovo T420s ( Samsung 840 Pro
> >> SSD inside ). After using ZFS installer ( force 4k on, MBR partition
> >> because GPT bug in Lenovo Bios ), i get "Missing operating system".
> >> If i boot bsdinstall again and looking with zpool import, my root
> >> pool ist gone away, only bootpool apears in the list. The partition
> >> list also changed ... i dont understand this.
> >>
> >> If i use UFS and MBR, all is fine. FreeBSD is booting.
> >>
> >> I tried manually the old style from FreeBSD Wiki ( ZFS on ROOT ), but
> >> not working, too. What can i do?
> >
> > Later versions of the BIOS have been reported to fix the GPT booting
> > problem.
> 

Not using pending mode there (iirc).

Strange that you have to rewrite the partition table and even stranger
that a BIOS update fixes the problem. Sounds like the BIOS isn't flushing
the writes to disk.

On one hand, I'd love to solve this in-code, but... if you say that a later
version of the BIOS is reported to fix GPT booting, maybe the solution
is to instead warn people with that hardware to update their BIOS if
they run into MBR working but GPT not.

I like the idea of appending something to device.hints also if that will
work (saving people the hassle of upgrading BIOS). That seems cleaner
than writing the partition table, laying down ZFS, then doing a backup
followed by restore (in hopes that it will then write a partition table
that survives a reboot).
-- 
Devin

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