Re: Can't install NetBSD to ffs2 partition, no errors

[Chavdar Ivanov <ci4ic4%gmail.com@localhost>]

On 05 October 2022 16:13:31 (+01:00), Ottavio Caruso wrote:

> Hi,
>
> 1) I have dd'ed the UEFI usb image of NetBSD 9.3/amd64 to a USB drive
> and booted from it.
>
> 2) From the utility menu, I have created a FFSv2 partition from 35GB
> unused space
> https://i.ibb.co/XxVy1M9/gpt-show-wd0.jpg
> https://i.ibb.co/4sSCXmw/partition-manager.jpg
>
> 3) Then I went back into the install menu:
> https://i.ibb.co/JCBX1p1/prompt-1.jpg
>
> 4) Accepted the warning to make changes on disk:
> https://i.ibb.co/6Pzvmvw/prompt-2.jpg
>
> 5) Selected NetBSD (dk6@wd0)
>
> 6) The menu goes back to point 3 without any apparent errors.
>
> I would have expected the menu would offer to create a disklabel from
> there, but it didn't.
Incorrect, as far as I know it. BSD wedges are created on MBR partitions, 
the GPT wedges are actually used as NetBSD partitions. 

I am under W11 right now and can't go dkctl or gpt, but from diskpart I 
see:
...
DISKPART> lis par

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Unknown             59 GB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    Unknown              8 GB    60 GB
  Partition 3    Unknown            100 GB    68 GB
  Partition 4    Primary            512 MB   168 GB
  Partition 5    Primary            292 GB   168 GB
  Partition 6    System            8191 KB   461 GB
  Partition 7    Unknown            129 GB   461 GB
  Partition 8    System             128 MB   590 GB
  Partition 9    Unknown            100 GB   590 GB
  Partition 10   Unknown              8 GB   690 GB
...

The last three partitions are the NetBSD EFI partition (8), the entire 
NetBSD / (9) and the NetBSD swap (10). 

There is also an NTFS (5) and the rest are used by Linux at the moment 
(there were actually two separate installations - Suse and Redhat, but I 
got rid of them and replaced both with a single instance of PopOS!, all 
without touching the rest). 

The installation was made years ago when EFI/GPT boot became available, 
entirely manually (http://www.netbsd.org/~mishka/gptboot/howto.html)  
without the use of the installer, which was not capable of doing anything 
similar at the time. NetBSD can boot using its bootx64.efi file, Linux 
boots only using rEFInd. The latest BIOS of my laptop took away the option 
of selecting a specific .efi file as a default boot, so now I go into 
interactive boot selection and choose the desired .efi file to continue. 

>
> No apparent warnings in dmesg.
>
> Any hint?
>

--
----
Chavdar Ivanov