Bug 16948

Summary:	sysinstall(8): sysinstall/disklabel: bad partition table when single->multiple slices
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	wayne <wayne>
Component:	bin	Assignee:	freebsd-sysinstall (Nobody) <sysinstall>
Status:	Closed Overcome By Events
Severity:	Affects Only Me	CC:	ngie
Priority:	Normal
Version:	Unspecified
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description wayne 2000-02-24 03:00:01 UTC

When converting a SCSI disk from dedicated to FreeBSD with a single
partition to multiple slices, sysinstall leaves the OLD label on the
disk. Sysinstall reads and writes the new information but O/S fails
to boot because it is still reading the old, invalid table.

Fix: 

Once I determined what was going on, I worked around the problem by 
doing a dd of /dev/zero to the disk and then re-doing the install.

I suggest that when the user deletes a slice from sysinstall, the 
operation should be performed immediately, unlike creates which 
can be deferred.
How-To-Repeat: Using sysinstall, dedicate the entire disk to FreeBSD.  I was doing
newfs and s/w installs of minimal config but that should not matter.
Reboot from floppy and allocate 2 slices of approximately equal size.
Problem occurs with both standard MBR and the FreeBSD boot
manager (the boot manager will simply beep when you hit F1).
Sysinstall will permit you to install s/w again but when you reboot
after the second install, up comes the dreaded 
"Missing Operating System"
Going back in w/ sysinstall will show the NEW information, even though
the MBR is using the OLD info.  To see what is actually being used on 
the disk, boot the fixit floppy and 
disklabel -r sd0

Comment 1 Sheldon Hearn 2000-02-29 16:06:02 UTC

On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 18:56:02 PST, wayne@staff.msen.com wrote:

> When converting a SCSI disk from dedicated to FreeBSD with a single
> partition to multiple slices, sysinstall leaves the OLD label on the
> disk. Sysinstall reads and writes the new information but O/S fails
> to boot because it is still reading the old, invalid table.

Are you able to verify that this is a problem in the current FreeBSD 4.0
RELEASE CANDIDATE?  Sysinstall's maintainer is under quite a lot of
pressure at the moment with the upcoming release, and if you could check
this on the 4.0 branch, I'm sure it'd be a massive help to him.

Ciao,
Sheldon.

Comment 2 wayne 2000-07-20 17:10:32 UTC

This problem is still present in 4.0 RELEASE.  Unfortunately, I
did not re-examine the open PR database prior to my last FreeBSD
conversion so I got bit by it again today.  So I have a completely
installed and configured system ready to go, that will not boot.

Is there any possibility of getting this into 4.1 RC?  It should
be a fairly simple fix to either zero the prior contents of blocks
1 & 2 on the disk before writing the partition table and boot blocks
or to simply zero all contents of the old partition table when
writing a non-dangerously-dedicated one.

/\/\ \/\/

Comment 3 Sheldon Hearn freebsd_committer

2000-07-20 17:49:28 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->murray

Murray, could you take a look at this one?  I don't remember a fix 
going in for it, and it's quite a nasty.

Comment 4 Murray Stokely freebsd_committer

2001-08-30 23:43:23 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: murray->eric

Eric is the man

Comment 5 Eric Melville freebsd_committer

2001-10-01 19:49:00 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: eric->freebsd-qa

assign idle sysinstall bugs to freebsd-qa, as suggested by murray

Comment 6 Bruce Cran freebsd_committer

2010-03-13 00:12:15 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->brucec

Take.

Comment 7 Bruce Cran freebsd_committer

2011-01-23 20:52:25 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: brucec->freebsd-bugs

Back to the pool.

Comment 8 Bruce Cran freebsd_committer

2011-01-23 22:04:05 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->freebsd-sysinstall

sysinstall PR.

Comment 9 Enji Cooper freebsd_committer

2015-11-10 09:05:04 UTC

sysinstall has been replaced by bsdinstall in FreeBSD 9.x. Closing.