AW: RE: bsdinstall ZFS and MBR not working

[Kai Kockro]

Hi ... latest bios is installed. Even younger Thinkpads have that GPT problem, but dont know if MBR is a problem there, too. The GPT hints ( set partition active and then inactive ) didnt help me.

If i can help to debug, let me know!

Best,
Kai

Von meinem Sony Xperia™-Smartphone gesendet

---- dteske at FreeBSD.org schrieb ----

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Kai Kockro [mailto:k.kockro at myphotobook.de]
>> Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2014 12:06 AM
>> To: Warren Block
>> Cc: freebsd-sysinstall at freebsd.org
>> Subject: Re: bsdinstall ZFS and MBR not working
>> 
>> Ok,
>> 
>> got it.
>> 
>> Normal MBR install, then go to shell. Save the gpart partitions to
>bootpool (
>> gpart backup ada0 and ada0s1 ). Reboot and go to LiveCD.
>> Import bootpool, recreate gpart partitions with gpart restore. Recreate
>the
>> bootblocks ( gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot0 ada0 && dd if=/boot/zfsboot
>> of=/dev/ada0s1 count=1 && dd if=/boot/zfsboot of=/dev/ada0s1a skip=1
>> seek=1024 ). Reboot and its working.
>> 
>> Maybe gpart is using pending mode in zfsboot script, i will look later.
>> 
>> Thanks to Warren ( i will try the gpt hints, too )!
>> 
>> Best,
>> Kai
>> 
>> Am 23.04.2014 15:27, schrieb Warren Block:
>> > On Wed, 23 Apr 2014, Kai Kockro wrote:
>> >
>> >> i wanted to install 10-RELEASE on my Lenovo T420s ( Samsung 840 Pro
>> >> SSD inside ). After using ZFS installer ( force 4k on, MBR partition
>> >> because GPT bug in Lenovo Bios ), i get "Missing operating system".
>> >> If i boot bsdinstall again and looking with zpool import, my root
>> >> pool ist gone away, only bootpool apears in the list. The partition
>> >> list also changed ... i dont understand this.
>> >>
>> >> If i use UFS and MBR, all is fine. FreeBSD is booting.
>> >>
>> >> I tried manually the old style from FreeBSD Wiki ( ZFS on ROOT ), but
>> >> not working, too. What can i do?
>> >
>> > Later versions of the BIOS have been reported to fix the GPT booting
>> > problem.
>> 
>
>Not using pending mode there (iirc).
>
>Strange that you have to rewrite the partition table and even stranger
>that a BIOS update fixes the problem. Sounds like the BIOS isn't flushing
>the writes to disk.
>
>On one hand, I'd love to solve this in-code, but... if you say that a later
>version of the BIOS is reported to fix GPT booting, maybe the solution
>is to instead warn people with that hardware to update their BIOS if
>they run into MBR working but GPT not.
>
>I like the idea of appending something to device.hints also if that will
>work (saving people the hassle of upgrading BIOS). That seems cleaner
>than writing the partition table, laying down ZFS, then doing a backup
>followed by restore (in hopes that it will then write a partition table
>that survives a reboot).
>-- 
>Devin
>
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