FreeBSD Installer not recognizing existing partition tables
Joel Maxuel
j.maxuel at gmail.com
Sun Jan 20 17:18:00 UTC 2019
A bit of delay to the response, but I am replying within FreeBSD as a
result.
Shortly after the last message, I found the verbose flag for the
kernel, to get the extra messages in dmesg:
hdacc1: GEOM: new disk ada0
hdaa1: GEOM: new disk ada1
GEOM_PART: partition 4 contains partition 5: start[4] 0 > start[5]
2048, end[5] 117229567 < end[4] 537234767
GEOM_PART: partition 4 contains partition 9: start[4] 0 > start[9]
117231616, end[9] 419311615 < end[4] 537234767
GEOM_PART: integrity check failed (ada0, BSD)
GEOM_PART: partition 4 contains partition 5: start[4] 0 > start[5]
2048, end[5] 78125055 < end[4] 1953525167
GEOM_PART: partition 4 contains partition 11: start[4] 0 > start[11]
117190656, end[11] 128907263 < end[4] 1953525167
GEOM_PART: partition 4 contains partition 12: start[4] 0 > start[12]
128909312, end[12] 695232511 < end[4] 1953525167
GEOM_PART: partition 4 contains partition 13: start[4] 0 > start[13]
695234560, end[13] 1827696639 < end[4] 1953525167
GEOM_PART: partition 4 contains partition 14: start[4] 0 > start[14]
1827698688, end[14] 1945137151 < end[4] 1953525167
GEOM_PART: partition 4 contains partition 15: start[4] 0 > start[15]
1945139200, end[15] 1953523711 < end[4] 1953525167
GEOM_PART: integrity check failed (ada1, BSD)
So it seems obvious to me now that FreeBSD is interpreting the disks as
having BSD partition tables (not sure why other than something that may
have happened when I tried out NetBSD).
gdisk confirmed this - as well as revealing another detail:
joel at cybaryme~> sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1
Partition table scan:
MBR: MBR only
BSD: present
APM: not present
GPT: not present
***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory.
***************************************************************
Disk /dev/sda: 537234768 sectors, 256.2 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 1973AB4D-3A33-4E61-AFAB-92EB6B7FFA7A
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 537234734
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 117927181 sectors (56.2 GiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 117229567 55.9 GiB 8300 Linux
filesystem
5 117231616 419311615 144.0 GiB 8300 Linux
filesystem
joel at cybaryme~> sudo gdisk -l /dev/sdb
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1
Partition table scan:
MBR: MBR only
BSD: present
APM: not present
GPT: not present
***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory.
***************************************************************
Disk /dev/sdb: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 71B8FB83-C10B-435B-9B34-68088FFF5D99
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 125840749 sectors (60.0 GiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 78125055 37.3 GiB 8300 Linux
filesystem
5 78127104 97656831 9.3 GiB 8300 Linux
filesystem
6 97658880 117188607 9.3 GiB 8300 Linux
filesystem
7 117190656 128907263 5.6 GiB 8200 Linux swap
8 128909312 695232511 270.0 GiB 8300 Linux
filesystem
9 695234560 1827696639 540.0 GiB 8300 Linux
filesystem
So following the advice I had come across (
https://superuser.com/questions/495672/how-can-i-convert-a-mbr-partition-to-gpt-without-loss-of-data
), I backed up the disks to images, and ran gdisk without the -l
switch. Wrote the changes, rebooted.
Tried with the HDD first, did not encounter an issue, and `gdisk -l`
returned a protective MBR and present GPT. The SSD was a litle
trickier as GRUB got borked and the only way to fix (GPT disks want
this anyway) is to create a partition (not logical) and flag it for
grub boot; install grub to that.
Initially that didn't help either, but after turning off mixed mode in
the BIOS (was try Legacy, then UEFI - changed to Legacy only) all was
good again. I did however notice in the installer that GEOM had a non-
spefific hissy fit (errors popped up behind the active dialogs) while
the new partitions were set up on the HDD (SSD did not encounter this)
- and since then a grub-update notes/warns-of "nested" issues on the
HDD. I am not seeing any issue in gdisk nor parted, except the new
partitions are one directly after another, aligned merely to the sector
(which to me just means a potential performance issue).
At this point I have a couple lingering issues:
- automount sets up the external media and user can unmount, but the
media contents are unreadable by user - "operation not permitted"
- the USB hub as part of my monitor will not reconnect when the monitor
power cycles - `usbconfig` will hang becuase of this until reboot
I will do a little more research on those two before coming back - the
first may be in a better state already by defining /media via
automount.conf instead of auto_master - shall see after reboot.
On Fri, 2019-01-18 at 17:01 -0400, Joel Maxuel wrote:
> Oops, I forgot to properly note that I have removed the extra
> partitions, and shrunk extended to reveal space for primary
> partitions.
> So the reply was in the context of no change in the behaviour of the
> installer environment.
>
> Now current parted info:
>
> Disk /dev/sda: 537234768s
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
> Partition Table: msdos
> Disk Flags:
>
> Number Start End Size Type File
> system Flags
> 1 2048s 117229567s 117227520s primary ext4 bo
> ot
> 2 117229568s 419311615s 302082048s extended
> 5 117231616s 419311615s 302080000s logical ext4
>
> Disk /dev/sdb: 1953525168s
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
> Partition Table: msdos
> Disk Flags:
>
> Number Start End Size Type File
> system Flags
> 1 2048s 78125055s 78123008s primary ext4
> 2 78127102s 1827698687s 1749571586s extended
> 5 78127104s 97656831s 19529728s logical ext4
> 6 97658880s 117188607s 19529728s logical ext4
> 7 117190656s 128907263s 11716608s logical linux-
> swap(v1)
> 8 128909312s 695232511s 566323200s logical ext4
> 9 695234560s 1827696639s 1132462080s logical ext2
>
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