Re: [9fans] Re: venti+fossil problems on new install

[John Stalker <stalker@maths.tcd.ie>]

> when you boot to freebsd, do you see "MBR" printed first thing?
> if you don't then there the plan9 MBR is not installed.

Sorry, I should have been a bit more precise.  The mbr is in
two parts.  There is the bootstrap code and then there is
the partition table.  The bootstrap code isn't from plan9,
it's GAG.  GAG can boot plan9 from secondary partitions.  I
know because I've done it on at least two other computers in
the past.  The partition table is the bit written by plan9.
So the answer to your question is no, I don't see "MBR" when I
boot FreeBSD, but I know the partition table was written by
plan9 disk/fdisk because FreeBSD fdisk shows the layout I
specified to plan9 disk/fdisk and not what was there before.
The bootstrap code is unchanged.

> i went through this two weeks ago with an unsupported sata chipset.
> unfortunately, i didn't take notes.
> 
> one thing that is definately wrong nis the drive letters.  if you
> have a sata disk, then the drive letter should be know as /dev/sdE0.

No, there's no sdE0.  I have no idea why, but it's always shown as
sdC0.

> i would try booting from the floppy and interrupting the installer with
> "!rc" then 
> 	cd /dev
> 	cat sdctl
> 	for(i in sd??){
> 		echo $i
> 		cat $i/ctl
> 	}
> should give some interesting results.

I tried this.  The results are more or less what they ought to be.

sdC ata port 1F0 ctl 3F4 irq 14
sdD ata port 170 ctl 374 irq 15

sdC0
inquiry ST96023A
config 0C5A capabilities 2F00 dma 00550020 dmactl 00000000 rwm 8 rwmctl 0 lba48always off
geometry 117210240 512 16383 16 63
part data 0 117210240
.
.
.
part plan9 36965628 61561080
.
.
.
part 9fat 36965628 37170428
part nvram 37170428 37170429
part fossil 37170429 40922836
part arenas 40922836 59684876
part isect 59684876 60622978
part swap 60622978 61561080
sdD0
.
.
.

I have omitted the data for the other dos partitions, but I did
check that they don't overlap the plan9 partition.  I have also
omitted the data for sdD0, since it doesn't seem relevant.  There
isn't anything else.

What I find really peculiar is that I see the same output regardless
of when I type

cd /dev
cat sdctl
for(i in sd??){
	echo $i
	cat $i/ctl
}

In other words, even after I am told that my disk is blank I still
see the correct partition table in /dev
 
> - erik
-- 
John Stalker
School of Mathematics
Trinity College Dublin
tel +353 1 896 1983
fax +353 1 896 2282