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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Path: sserve!sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au!phillip
From: phillip@mirriwinni.ee.adfa.oz.au (Phillip Musumeci)
Subject: DOS&FreeBSD2 sharing disk- take care with subsequent DOS format
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Message-ID: <PHILLIP.94Dec8092248@mirriwinni.ee.adfa.oz.au>
Sender: news@sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au
Reply-To: phillip@ee.adfa.oz.au
Organization: University College UNSW ADFA Australia
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Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 22:22:48 GMT
I have observed the following bug which might be attributable to DOS.
The DOS 6.x fdisk and the freebsd-2 fdisk can both agree on the size of a
DOS partition (after freebsd-2's installation disk has been used to
partition a shared disk using freebsd's fdisk) but the DOS format command
can ignore the partition information and use the whole disk. In our case,
we eventually used the DOS fdisk to delete and then recreate a primary DOS
partition (of the original size) and then the DOS fdisk and the DOS format
command agree.
What we did and our work-around:
1) use FreeBSD-2 installation floppies and partition a single disk for DOS
and FreeBSD use. DOS uses partition 1 (ID byte 0x06 by memory), FreeBSD
uses partition 2 (ID byte 0xa5 by memory), and the other two partitions
remain unallocated. Install boot manager.
2) install FreeBSD successfully, and run for a couple of days.
3) boot DOS from floppy and prepare to format the DOS partition.
a) run the DOS fdisk --- this reports that the DOS partition is
recognised and has the correct size.
b) run the DOS format utility --- this reports that it is about to
format the whole disk!
4) run DOS fdisk and delete and then recreate the DOS primary partition.
Now the DOS format command only formats a DOS file system occupying the
DOS partition and not the whole disk.
[of course, we did not do each of the above steps 1..4 only once]
phillip
--
--------------------- __ /\ ---------------------------------------
Dr. Phillip Musumeci, / \/ \ University College UNSW,
Electrical Eng. Dept. / \ Australian Defence Force Academy,
++61 6 2688238 (w) / / Northcott Drive,
++61 6 2411442 (h) \ __ */ Canberra ACT 2600. AUSTRALIA
++61 6 2688443 (fax) `-' \_/ EMAIL: phillip@ee.adfa.oz.au
.
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-- Galileo Galilei