From muir@idiom.com  Mon Jan 22 03:28:51 1996
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Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 03:28:50 -0800
From: David Muir Sharnoff <muir@idiom.com>
Reply-To: muir@idiom.com
To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org
Subject: Using the whole disk can end unbootable
X-Send-Pr-Version: 3.2

>Number:         963
>Category:       conf
>Synopsis:       Using the whole disk can end unbootable
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          closed
>Quarter:
>Keywords:
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Jan 22 03:30:11 PST 1996
>Closed-Date:    Tue Jan 23 22:28:06 MET 1996
>Last-Modified:  Tue Jan 23 22:29:38 MET 1996
>Originator:     David Muir Sharnoff
>Release:        FreeBSD 2.1-RELEASE i386
>Organization:
Idiom Consulting
>Environment:

	Use a disk with > 2000 cylindars.

>Description:
	
	The boot selector complains about having more than 2000 
	cylindars and you're hosed.

>How-To-Repeat:

	Tell the Jordan's nice install program to use the whole thing
	and not to worry about DOS.

	Then tell it to install the nice F1, F2, etc. boot selector.

>Fix:
	

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:

From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
To: muir@idiom.com
Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org
Subject: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 16:55:27 +0100 (MET)

 As David Muir Sharnoff wrote:
 > 
 > 
 > 	Use a disk with > 2000 cylindars.
 > 
 > >Description:
 > 	
 > 	The boot selector complains about having more than 2000 
 > 	cylindars and you're hosed.
 > 
 > >How-To-Repeat:
 > 
 > 	Tell the Jordan's nice install program to use the whole thing
 > 	and not to worry about DOS.
 > 
 > 	Then tell it to install the nice F1, F2, etc. boot selector.
 
 Do you say you've been using the ``dangerously dedicated'' option?
 
 You are assumed you know what you are doing when using it.  That's why
 it is not the default.
 
 -- 
 cheers, J"org
 
 joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
 Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)

From: David Muir Sharnoff <muir@idiom.com>
To: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 10:54:33 -0800

 * Do you say you've been using the ``dangerously dedicated'' option?
 * 
 * You are assumed you know what you are doing when using it.  That's why
 * it is not the default.
 
 The message says that you can't use it with DOS if you do that.
 That's fine.  If I can't use my friendly neighboorhood boot selector,
 then it should either mention that too or not let me.
 
 I know it makes sense in retrospect, but it wasted a bunch of time.
 
 -Dave

From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
To: muir@idiom.com (David Muir Sharnoff)
Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 22:09:17 +0100 (MET)

 As David Muir Sharnoff wrote:
 > 
 > 
 > * Do you say you've been using the ``dangerously dedicated'' option?
 > * 
 > * You are assumed you know what you are doing when using it.  That's why
 > * it is not the default.
 > 
 > The message says that you can't use it with DOS if you do that.
 
 ``This is dangerous in that it will make the drive totally
 uncooperative with other potential operating systems on the
 same disk.  It will lead instead to a totally dedicated disk,
 starting at the very first sector, bypassing all BIOS geometry
 considerations.
 You will run into serious trouble with ST-506 and ESDI drives
 and possibly some IDE drives (e.g. drives running under the
 control of sort of disk manager).  SCSI drives are considerably
 less at risk.
 
 Do you insist on dedicating the entire disk this way?''
 
 I don't really know how to make it more explicit that this is
 dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.  Please, submit
 a better warning text... we failed to find one.
 
 > That's fine.  If I can't use my friendly neighboorhood boot selector,
 > then it should either mention that too or not let me.
 
 What the heck do you wanna use a boot selector for if the *entire*
 disk is dedicated?  The BSD label starts at sector 0, so there's no
 more room for a fancy boot selector.
 
 The usage of a boot selector is not even offered for the regular
 sequence of doing things (the menu is bypassed if ``dangerously
 dedicated'' has been selected).
 
 This option is really only intended for people who don't care for
 anything else than BSD, but therefore do not understand why they had
 to undergo major hassles in tweaking their brain for a disk
 ``geometry'' that was never really important again for them.
 
 As i wrote: please submit a better text.
 
 -- 
 cheers, J"org
 
 joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
 Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)

From: David Muir Sharnoff <muir@idiom.com>
To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 00:10:29 -0800

 * I don't really know how to make it more explicit that this is
 * dangerous if you don't know what you are doing.  Please, submit
 * a better warning text... we failed to find one.
 
 What you are warning against is that it doesn't work with other
 operating systems.   It also needs to warn that it cannot be used
 with the bootmgr.  
 
 * > That's fine.  If I can't use my friendly neighboorhood boot selector,
 * > then it should either mention that too or not let me.
 * 
 * What the heck do you wanna use a boot selector for if the *entire*
 * disk is dedicated?  The BSD label starts at sector 0, so there's no
 * more room for a fancy boot selector.
 
 Choosing which disk to boot off of.
 
 * The usage of a boot selector is not even offered for the regular
 * sequence of doing things (the menu is bypassed if ``dangerously
 * dedicated'' has been selected).
 * 
 * This option is really only intended for people who don't care for
 * anything else than BSD, but therefore do not understand why they had
 * to undergo major hassles in tweaking their brain for a disk
 * ``geometry'' that was never really important again for them.
 * 
 * As i wrote: please submit a better text.
 
 Either it wasn't bypassed or a different boot manager wasn't written.
 As far as I know the problems I had were because the boot selector
 didn't work.  I didn't do anything special to install it, but there
 was an old one already there.
 
 If a special boot loader must be used with a disk that isn't using 
 slices, then that boot loader needs to be installed!
 
 I've always had trouble getting the boot stuff work right because I
 insist on installing onto sd1.  I really an easy way to add boot 
 selectors and boot blocks onto other disks and partitions.  Linux's LILO
 is a bit more flexible and I might use that as my primary boot selector
 if I could get it to work.  
 
 -Dave

From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
To: muir@idiom.com (David Muir Sharnoff)
Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 09:54:02 +0100 (MET)

 As David Muir Sharnoff wrote:
 > 
 > What you are warning against is that it doesn't work with other
 > operating systems.   It also needs to warn that it cannot be used
 > with the bootmgr.  
 
 It also warns that it eats up the disk ``from the very first sector''.
 
 > * As i wrote: please submit a better text.
 > 
 > Either it wasn't bypassed or a different boot manager wasn't written.
 
 A different ``boot manager'' was written.  The disklabel itself.
 
 > As far as I know the problems I had were because the boot selector
 > didn't work.  I didn't do anything special to install it, but there
 > was an old one already there.
 
 It should be wiped out without a whisper.
 
 > If a special boot loader must be used with a disk that isn't using 
 > slices, then that boot loader needs to be installed!
 
 No special boot loader.  Please think about it.  The disk is being
 used by FreeBSD *from the very first sector*.  That is exactly the
 sector of the disk where your beloved boot manager was sitting.  It's
 apparent that there is no room for any fancy boot selector anymore,
 and that's why we decided to make it not the default, and why there's
 yet another warning that you might shoot into your foot if you don't
 really know what you are doing.  Sigh, you apparently didn't know
 what you are doing, but selected it anyways.
 
 How should we protected people like you from shooting in their feet
 without bothering those too much that have a good reason to use the
 feature?  The feature is intended for people who do not care at all
 about DOS, Linux, OS/2, Winglows, boot selectors, or whatnot.  There
 are those folks around, allot actually, and they are our ``more
 serious customers'', i.e. often in the corporate environment, where
 the machines run 7*24 hours per week.  We have been embarassing them
 too much with our 2.0.5 attitude of ``install a DOS partition first if
 you can't get the geometry troubles resolved''.  That's the whole
 story why the ``dangerously dedicated'' mode is there.  Perhaps we
 should add this headline to the window, with an emphasize on
 ``dangerously''.
 
 Again: submit a better warning text, please, or i'll close the PR
 since i fail to see how to `fix' the problem.
 
 -- 
 cheers, J"org
 
 joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
 Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)

From: David Muir Sharnoff <muir@idiom.com>
To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 10:27:14 -0800

 * Again: submit a better warning text, please, or i'll close the PR
 * since i fail to see how to `fix' the problem.
 
 Warning text isn't needed.  Just don't ask me which boot selector to
 use.  I didn't go seek it out.  I wouldn't have specified if it hadn't
 of asked.  (I did a "commit" to start the process going, so perhaps if
 I had written the partition information first it wouldn't have asked, 
 but I still think there is a bug in there.) 
 
 I would have been happy to use the whole disk, I just need it to boot!
 
 Actually, the system this disk ended up on has 3 2GB disks with nothing
 but FreeBSD partitions on them.
 
 * It also warns that it eats up the disk ``from the very first sector''.
 
 Or at this point, is should say "precluding any possible boot selector
 (not that you would need one anyway)"
 
 -Dave

From: J Wunsch <j@uriah.heep.sax.de>
To: muir@idiom.com (David Muir Sharnoff)
Cc: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: conf/963: Using the whole disk can end unbootable
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 21:45:53 +0100 (MET)

 As David Muir Sharnoff wrote:
 > 
 > Warning text isn't needed.  Just don't ask me which boot selector to
 > use.  I didn't go seek it out.  I wouldn't have specified if it hadn't
 > of asked.  (I did a "commit" to start the process going, so perhaps if
 > I had written the partition information first it wouldn't have asked, 
 > but I still think there is a bug in there.) 
 
 I regularly doing this using just `commit', and it never happened to
 me.  But maybe there's a bug, yes.  sysinstall should base the
 decision to ask for the MBR contents based on the fact whether the
 FreeBSD slice starts at sector 0 or not.  By now, this decision is
 made based on the history of entered commands, i.e. only if you have
 actually been selecting ``dangerously dedicated'' just a few seconds
 prior, it will supress the question.  This doesn't account for cases
 where the disk is already in a state where the FreeBSD slice is at the
 very beginning (which could happen for various reasons).
 
 > * It also warns that it eats up the disk ``from the very first sector''.
 > 
 > Or at this point, is should say "precluding any possible boot selector
 > (not that you would need one anyway)"
 
 Ok, i will add this.
 
 -- 
 cheers, J"org
 
 joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
 Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
State-Changed-From-To: open->closed 
State-Changed-By: joerg 
State-Changed-When: Tue Jan 23 22:28:06 MET 1996 
State-Changed-Why:  
Added one more hint in sysinstall/disk.c rev 1.35. 

>Unformatted:
