From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: From: David Presotto To: rgr@sdf.lonestar.org, 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9 install doesn't put the right MBR on the disk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="upas-xglpitvkyhsbgugujnbtrxwuem" Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 07:16:49 -0400 Topicbox-Message-UUID: f8a16162-eacb-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --upas-xglpitvkyhsbgugujnbtrxwuem Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I tried it on one yesterday and it put a working mbr on it. Perhaps I did something different. I copied /dev/zeros to the disk before starting to wipe out what was there. Is it asking you to install an MBR? --upas-xglpitvkyhsbgugujnbtrxwuem Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Disposition: inline Received: from plan9.cs.bell-labs.com ([135.104.9.2]) by plan9; Tue Jul 15 01:17:29 EDT 2003 Received: from mail.cse.psu.edu ([130.203.4.6]) by plan9; Tue Jul 15 01:17:27 EDT 2003 Received: by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server, from userid 60001) id 1C73219AEA; Tue, 15 Jul 2003 01:17:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from psuvax1.cse.psu.edu (psuvax1.cse.psu.edu [130.203.16.6]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with ESMTP id 0F89A19A6D; Tue, 15 Jul 2003 01:17:13 -0400 (EDT) X-Original-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Delivered-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Received: by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server, from userid 60001) id 04F9A19A86; Tue, 15 Jul 2003 01:16:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from rgristroph-austin.ath.cx (cs24362-19.austin.rr.com [24.243.62.19]) by mail.cse.psu.edu (CSE Mail Server) with ESMTP id 54B1D19A6D for <9fans@cse.psu.edu>; Tue, 15 Jul 2003 01:16:19 -0400 (EDT) Received: from rgr by rgristroph-austin.ath.cx with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19cIC8-0000y3-00; Tue, 15 Jul 2003 00:17:44 -0500 From: rgr@sdf.lonestar.org (Rob Ristroph) To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Message-ID: <87vfu4mkqw.fsf@rgristroph-austin.ath.cx> Lines: 26 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.4 (Common Lisp) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: [9fans] Plan 9 install doesn't put the right MBR on the disk Sender: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu Errors-To: 9fans-admin@cse.psu.edu X-BeenThere: 9fans@cse.psu.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu X-Reply-To: rgr@sdf.lonestar.org List-Id: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans.cse.psu.edu> List-Archive: Date: 15 Jul 2003 00:17:43 -0500 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.5 required=5.0 tests=USER_AGENT_GNUS_UA version=2.55 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.55 (1.174.2.19-2003-05-19-exp) 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 --upas-xglpitvkyhsbgugujnbtrxwuem--