Bug 21406

Summary:	[boot] bootinst or booteasy overwrites second drive's partition table
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	whansard <whansard>
Component:	kern	Assignee:	Remko Lodder <remko>
Status:	Closed FIXED
Severity:	Affects Only Me
Priority:	Normal
Version:	Unspecified
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description whansard 2000-09-20 04:00:01 UTC

the boot manager installed by bootinst.exe will occasionally write
the partition table of the first hard drive in my system to the
second hard drive.  This has happened about 10 times over the past
2 years with various computers, and I am able to restore the partition table 
 with linux's fdisk.  This happens when, 1) The computer is set to
boot from an ide cdrom, which fails because no cdrom is present, 2)
I try to boot in some way that fails.  The partition tables in
both drives have the four main entries full.  The first drive
has 1 type 06, 1 type c, 1 type 83, and 1 type 85 with many logical
partitions in that.  The second drive has one freebsd partition,
one solaris, one beos, and one type 85, linux extended with many
logical drives.  This has happend with 4 different motherboards,
and several different hard drives.  I don't know if any hardware
is common. This has happened both when the second drive is a 
primary slave, and when it is a secondary master.

How-To-Repeat: Have the computer set to boot from an ide cdrom. Do not have
a bootable cdrom in the drive.  Have bootinst.exe installed in
the master boot record of both drives.  The other conditions
are uncertain.  Occasionally the partition table of the first
drive will be written to the second.  I would suggest having
3 or 4 partitions on each of the drives, perhaps with a couple not
bootable.  It does not happen every time.  Maybe 1 out of 10 to
1 out of 50 boots, my second partition table gets hosed, then I 
remember, and unset the boot from cdrom in the bios.

Comment 1 Remko Lodder freebsd_committer

2006-12-30 16:02:25 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->feedback

hello is this problem still relevant?

Comment 2 Remko Lodder freebsd_committer

2006-12-30 16:02:25 UTC

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

grab the pr

Comment 3 whansard 2006-12-30 19:15:06 UTC

I haven't run into that problem in years, and i have been using a newer version of 
bootinst for years also.  I'll happily go along with "no longer relevant".

Comment 4 Remko Lodder freebsd_committer

2006-12-30 19:52:36 UTC

State Changed
From-To: feedback->closed

The submitter reports that he had been using a newer version of bootinst 
for some time now and mentions that this is no longer relevant. Thus 
closing the PR. Thanks for the feedback !