format slice

[Jerry McAllister]

> 
> Thank you for your suggestions, I followed them and this is what happened: 
> 
> pcwin451# fdisk -s
> /dev/ad0: 39704 cyl 16 hd 63 sec
> Part        Start        Size Type Flags
>    1:          63    20820177 0x07 0x00
>    2:    20820240    19201392 0xa5 0x80
> 
> Part 1 is the one I want to convert to a freebsd slice. 
> 
> Now I used fdisk -f <file> with the input 
> 
> p 1 0 0 0
> 
> the operation succeeded. I did again: 
> 
> pcwin451# fdisk -s
> /dev/ad0: 39704 cyl 16 hd 63 sec
> Part        Start        Size Type Flags
>    2:    20820240    19201392 0xa5 0x80
> 
> And this was indeed the output I expected. So I thought lets see what
> sysinstall thinks of all this. Selecting fdisk in the menu showed me a disk
> layout where the NTFS partition still was on the disk. 
> 
> Disk name:      ad0                                    FDISK Partition
> Editor
> DISK Geometry:  39704 cyls/16 heads/63 sectors = 40021632 sectors (19541MB)
> 
> Offset       Size(ST)        End     Name  PType       Desc  Subtype
> Flags
> 
>          0         63         62        -     12     unused        0
> 
>         63   20820177   20820239    ad0s1      4 NTFS/HPFS/QNX        7
>   20820240   19201392   40021631    ad0s2      8    freebsd      165
> 
> 
> How can this be? I've always assumed that sysinstall uses the fdisk tool?
> And which one is "correct"? Is it wise to try creating a new slice with
> fdisk? 

Well, is one of them reading only the in-memory label and the other
reading the label on the disk?    When you did the fdisk, did you
make sure it changed on disk.  Then, did the in-memory label get
updated?

////jerry
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alejandro Pulver [mailto:alejandro at varnet.biz] 
> Sent: vrijdag 11 maart 2005 20:15
> To: Freek Nossin
> Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: format slice
> 
> On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:58:10 +0100
> "Freek Nossin" <freeknossin at tiscali.nl> wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I have a freebsd installation on a disk with two slices. One of them
> > has the current freebsd install, the other has a win2k installation. I
> > want to convert the win2k slice to a freebsd slice (by deleting the
> > old one and add a new one). I followed the handbook but when I try to
> > delete the win2k slice, and want to write the changes to the disk,
> > sysinstall returns "a disk error". The steps I took were simple:
> > 
> > - run sysinstall en select fdisk
> > - choose delete on the NTFS slice 
> > - Write changes
> > 
> > Then sysinstall complains that it cannot do that (no specific
> > information on the cause of the error is displayed). 
> > 
> > Does anyone know what can be wrong and how can I solve this?
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> > To unsubscribe, send any mail to
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> 
> Hello,
> 
> Try using 'fdisk' directly (man 8 fdisk) and see the complete error
> messages.
> 
> For example, to delete the second slice (check the numbering with
> 'fdisk -s') save the following in a file and then run 'fdisk -f <file>'
> (but first try the test mode with the -t flag to see if it works as
> expected):
> 
> p 2 0 0 0
> 
> Best Regards,
> Ale
> 
> P.S.: what is the output of 'fdisk -s'?
> 
> 
> 
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