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Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 11:54:09 -0000
From: pgf@american.com
Reply-To: pgf@american.com
To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org
Subject: partition table truncation by install process
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>Number:         1024
>Category:       misc
>Synopsis:       installation may delete partitions on existing boot disk
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    jkh
>State:          closed
>Quarter:
>Keywords:
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Feb 13 09:20:01 PST 1996
>Closed-Date:    Wed May 8 02:26:19 PDT 1996
>Last-Modified:  Wed May  8 02:28:32 PDT 1996
>Originator:     Paul G. Fox
>Release:        FreeBSD 2.1-STABLE i386
>Organization:
American Internet Corporation
>Environment:

the machine is a generic DX/66, 2 old MFM hard drives on an AT-style
controller, 2 SCSI disks on an adaptec 1542.  the system currently runs
linux.  the boot disk is a 150meg maxtor (i think) with 1224 cylinders. 
the linux root partition is the last partition on this disk, and spans the
1024'th cylinder.  the freebsd install was directed at the second SCSI
disk.

	

>Description:

i was attempting to do a network install of freebsd to the second
SCSI drive.  i did this twice:
	- when asked if i wanted to install booteasy, i said yes
and 
	- when asked if i wanted to install booteasy, i said no
in both cases, when i attempted to reboot the system when the install
was complete, the linux root filesystem could not be found.  booting
from floppy and running linux fdisk showed that the last partition on
the boot drive was missing.  re-entering that partition data (from paper
hardcopy) made everything okay again -- i.e. there was no loss of data,
just the partition table was truncated.

i understand that freebsd may not be able to deal with disks with more
than 1024 cylinders.  but it should not change partitions on such disks,
especially if its not installing to them.

	

>How-To-Repeat:

	

>Fix:
	
	
	unknown

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
Responsible-Changed-From-To: freebsd-bugs->jkh 
Responsible-Changed-By: gpalmer 
Responsible-Changed-When: Tue Apr 9 12:16:55 PDT 1996 
Responsible-Changed-Why:  
Installation problem (POSSIBLY in ``libdisk'',although I think it's probably 
a bogon in sysinstall) 
State-Changed-From-To: open->closed 
State-Changed-By: jkh 
State-Changed-When: Wed May 8 02:26:19 PDT 1996 
State-Changed-Why:  
This is a duplicate of PR#846, and has been fixed. 
>Unformatted:
