Re: Odd fdisk output

[Nick Holland <nick@holland-consulting.net>]

Mike Ayers wrote:
> 
> Nick Holland wrote:
> 
> > Ted Unangst wrote:
> > ...
> >
> >>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. :)
> 
>         I didn't do it last time!  Not deliberately, anyway.  This happened when I
> answered "yes" to the "Do you intend to use the whole disk for OpenBSD?" prompt.
>   Well, now I know what that does...

Actually, you (probably) got the fdisk part right.  Using the "use
whole disk" option creates a (supposedly) valid OpenBSD partition,
loads the default OpenBSD MBR, etc.

The problem was most likely during the disklabel part -- somehow, you
lost the offset in disklabel, which obliterated the "correct" MBR
(including the partition table) created by fdisk.


I tend to be very careful about answering "Y" to that question, but
the reason is  being afraid of killing a system maintenance partition
(i.e., Compaq) or blowing away the wrong hard drive ("Oh, I thought
this was the 40G with nothing on it, not the 2G with my friend's
website on it").  If things DO look like I expected, and there is no
maintenance partition issue, THEN I do a "reinit" to do the same thing
that answering "y" does, and move on (assuming that is what I want to
do).  

Answering "y" to the "use entire disk" question won't cause this
problem.  Or shouldn't...and if it does...let us know. 8)  I'm pretty
sure it was an "event" in disklabel.

Nick.
-- 
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