Subject: Re: Error No NetBSD partition
To: None <netbsd-help@NetBSD.org>
From: Henry Nelson <netb@yuba.ne.jp>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 11/27/2006 07:13:36
On Sun, Nov 26, 2006 at 09:21:04PM +0000, David Laight wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 27, 2006 at 01:06:21AM +0900, Henry Nelson wrote:
> > # fdisk -i wd1
> > # fdisk -0 -c /usr/mdec/mbr -u wd1
> > # fdisk -a wd1

So somewhere these commands are wrong or incomplete.

> > When I try to boot on that disk after moving it to the master position
> > (now wd0), nothing comes across on the serial console, and if I hook up
> > the monitor to the video card, all I get is "NetBSD MBR boot    Error
> > No NetBSD partition".
> 
> The 'mbr' boot code can only output to the bios console device - which is
> why the error message is output there.
> 
> You haven't given the output of 'fdisk wd1' or 'disklabel wd1', but the
> text 'No NetBSD partition' ought to be a clue!

It gave a clue, but I had no clue as to what went wrong.  Last time it
"just worked".  Also, I was clueless as to the meaning of the output of
'fdisk wd1' without proding.  NOW I notice there is only a DOS partition,
but I still don't understand why.  (The disklabel seems to be okay, other
than the partitions are not aligned on cylinders as intended.)

Partition table:
0: Primary DOS with 32 bit FAT - LBA (sysid 12)
    start 63, size 12594897 (6150 MB, Cyls 0-784), Active
1: <UNUSED>
2: <UNUSED>
3: <UNUSED>

> I suspect that you haven't set the partition type to 169 in fdisk.

It appears so.  How is that done?  ("-s 169" ?)

Should the command I ran "# fdisk -0 -c /usr/mdec/mbr -u wd1" be
"fdisk -0 -s 169 -c /usr/mdec/mbr -u wd1" instead?

I assume all data has on the disk has to be backed up ASAP.  Should I
be mounting all partitions on that disk as type "msdos" until I get the
data off?

-- 
henry nelson
  WWW_HOME=http://yuba(dot)ne(dot)jp/(tilde)home/