A gpart(8) mystery on 10.3-RELEASE

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 5 Apr 2016, Steven Hartland wrote:
> On 05/04/2016 20:48, Warren Block wrote:

>> Actually, the more I think about it, using bootcode -p to write the entire 
>> EFI partition seems dangerous.  Unless it is surprisingly smart, it will 
>> wipe out any existing stuff on that EFI partition, which could be any 
>> number of important things put there by other utilities or operating 
>> systems, including device drivers.
>> 
>> The safer way is to mount that partition and copy the boot1.efi file to it.

> Pretty sure that's not done as you cant guarantee fat support is available.

In the kernel, you mean?  True.  But odds are good that someone with a 
custom kernel without msdosfs will understand the implications of 
overwriting the EFI partition.

And of course it is safe to create an EFI partition, it would only be a 
problem if one already existed with some extra files on it.