From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: rgr@sdf.lonestar.org (Rob Ristroph)
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Message-ID: <87vfu4mkqw.fsf@rgristroph-austin.ath.cx>
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Subject: [9fans] Plan 9 install doesn't put the right MBR on the disk
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 00:17:43 -0500
Topicbox-Message-UUID: f8879d36-eacb-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025


Hi,

        The current Plan 9 which you download from Bell Labs is
        uninstallable on a clean machine.  It doesn't put the Master
        Boot Record on the disk during the install process, and
        various methods of writing an mbr (from another OS or from a
        Plan 9 floppy) make the boot process survive only a split
        second longer.

        Note that if you currently have a working Plan 9 on the disk,
        you have to wipe the MBR to replicate this problem.  You can
        do this by booting a dos disk and doing fdisk /mbr or with
        dd.  If you don't, you will install the latest Plan 9 and
        it will seem to work fine, but only because the MBR survived
        from your previous working setup.

        I have replicated this behaviour on two computers of my own,
        and even bought a brand new disk because I thought all my
        disks might be screwed; and on top of that I went to friend's
        house today and convinced him to take down his working Plan 9
        and try a fresh install on a clean disk, and replicated it
        there also.

--Rob