i386/121124: FreeBSD 6.3 installation deletes MBR partition

[Volker]

The following reply was made to PR i386/121124; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Volker <volker at vwsoft.com>
To: bug-followup at FreeBSD.org, dan_strick at sbcglobal.net
Cc:  
Subject: Re: i386/121124: FreeBSD 6.3 installation deletes MBR partition
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:22:15 +0100

 Dan,
 
 unfortunately your partition table seems to be seriously broken if the
 information you've posted is correct.
 
 slice 1 starts at 63, has a size of 8209152
 slice 2 starts at 8209214, size 1
 slice 3 starts at 8209215, size 8225280
 slice 4 starts at 16434495, size 143637165
 
 If you're manually calculating the start sectors, you'll see there's an
 overlap, which is deadly while installing an OS.
 
 Your partition table should look similar like:
 slice 1 start at 63, size 8209152
 slice 2 start at 8209215, size 1
 slice 3 start at 8209216, size 8225280
 slice 4 start at 16434496
 
 That could have been the reason why the partition editor gave you a warning.
 
 I'm wondering if the maintainers can see if there's chance to complain
 clearly about a broken partition table before writing a new mbr?
 
 But I suggest to backup all your data, repartition your disk and install
 everything.