*BSD News Article 15367


Return to BSD News archive

Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!decwrl!decwrl!usenet.coe.montana.edu!nate
From: nate@cs.montana.edu (Nate Williams)
Subject: Disklabel Grief
Message-ID: <1993Apr29.215646.1152@coe.montana.edu>
Sender: usenet@coe.montana.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: CS
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1993 21:56:46 GMT
Lines: 47


I screwd up.  I accidentally wiped out my boot partition.   (Don't ask,
it's too embarassing).

Disk is 386BSD only, no DOS partition table, nothing fancy, just the
bootblocks.  I have all the necessary information for my partitions, as
a matter of fact the machine is running (sort of) now.

However, after I disklabel the drive and reboot, the disklabel information
is lost.   Don't know why, but the master boot doesn't seem to be getting
written.

I've tried DOS 6: fdisk /mbr
I've tried disklabeling every way known to man, but after the disklabel
only appears to be going to the in-core copy, and not getting written
to disk.

I'm up by booting off the fixit floppy, mounting up / and /usr on /mnt
and chrooting.  I can then run the rc script, but this is a MAJOR
kludge.  Everything works, but it's definately not the way to run a
system.  (Though I can see some pretty good beta testing advantages doing
it this way)

Anyway, does anyone have ANY ideas on what's going on?  I've tried Julians
bootblocks, the original bootblocks, the old disklabel program, the new
disklabel program.  I've stopped short of catting the kernel on the
drive, since I REALLY would like to only replace the bootblocks, since the
data is still on the disk.  (I'm up and running now).

FYI - Disk is a Maxtor 8380, controller is an Adaptec 1542B, if that makes
any difference.  This is the first time I've touched the blocks in over
a year, but I know it worked at one time. :(

Please, please, please, please, someone help me out here.  I need to figure
this out because I need the machine, and if I end up writing the new install
program I need to know what's up.


Thanks,

Nate

-- 
osynw@terra.oscs.montana.edu |  Still trying to find a good reason for
nate@cs.montana.edu          |  these 'computer' things.  Personally,
work #: (406) 994-4836       |  I don't think they'll catch on - 
home #: (406) 586-0579       |                            Don Hammerstrom