Re: Odd fdisk output

[Ted Unangst <tedu@zeitbombe.org>]

On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Nick Holland wrote:

> >         This system boots and runs fine, but I don't understand why.
>
> Me neither.  I'd expect a system like this to choke and die a horrible
> death, but I've seen it reported before. 8)

OP put his disk in "dangerously dedicated" mode, as FreeBSD used to call
it.  FFS saves space at the front of the disk for boot blocks, which is
typicaly unusued, although in this case, the MBR is living there.  It's
dangerous because some BIOSes will attempt to verify the partition table
and refuse to boot.  in the case of some thinkpad models (maybe some
other model, but thought ibm), it would hang the bios in such a way as to
require factory service.  fun.

If it works now, there is no reason it should cease working later unless
you move it to another computer or something like that.  next time, don't
do that. :)

-- 
the only reason you're still alive
is because someone has decided to let you live