On 3 May 2014 08:49, Andreas Bartelt <o...@bartula.de> wrote: > On 05/03/14 14:10, Kenneth Westerback wrote: >> >> On 3 May 2014 06:27, Martijn Rijkeboer <mart...@bunix.org> wrote: >>>> >>>> So marking a partition as 'Active/Bootable', (the 00 -> 80 change) >>>> causes your system to hang. Apparently Linux does this when you >>>> 'Label' it. The OpenBSD installer does it for you when you >>>> select 'Whole disk'. Nothing obviously to do with the disklabel. You >>>> could test this by manually >>>> setting the 'Active' flag on the working Linux MBR. Or, conversely >>>> unsetting the flag with fdisk >>>> after the OpenBSD install but before rebooting. In either case does it >>>> get further before noticing that it can't boot? >>> >>> >>> >>> I did some testing with the following results: >>> >>> 1. Partition disk with Linux gparted and use cfdisk to set partition >>> type to A6 and OpenBSD disklabel to set disklabel. >>> (partition: 0; start: 2048; size: 1953519616) >>> - Bootflag off, no disklabel -> boot >>> - Bootflag on, no disklabel -> boot >>> - Bootflag off, with disklabel -> freeze >>> - Bootflag on, with disklabel -> freeze >>> >>> 2. Partition disk with OpenBSD fdisk + disklabel (installer start + >>> size). >>> (partition: 3, start: 64; size: 1953520001) >>> - Bootflag off, no disklabel -> freeze >>> - Bootflag on, no disklabel -> freeze >>> - Bootflag off, with disklabel -> freeze >>> - Bootflag on, with diskalbel -> freeze >>> >>> 3. Partition disk with OpenBSD fdisk + disklabel (linux start + size). >>> (partition: 3: start: 2048; size: 1953519616) >>> - Bootflag off, no disklabel -> boot >>> - Bootflag on, no disklabel -> boot >>> - Bootflag off, with disklabel -> freeze >>> - Bootflag on, with disklabel -> freeze >>> >>> 4. Partition disk with OpenBSD fdisk with type 83 (installer start + >>> size). >>> (partition: 3, start: 64; size: 1953520001) >>> - Bootflag off -> freeze >>> - Bootflag on -> freeze >>> >>> It looks like the motherboard doesn't like the partition to start at 64 >>> and >>> it also doesn't like disklabels. >>> >>> Any suggestions on what to try next or should I just buy a different >>> motherboard? >>> >>> Kind regards, >>> >>> >>> Martijn Rijkeboer >>> >> >> Looking around I found that one of my machines has a gigabyte >> GA-Z87-D3HP board, and I scrounged up a 1TB WD 10EARS disk. The disk >> was from another machine and had a working OpenBSD system. Lo and >> behold, plugged it into the GA-Z87-D3HP board and the system hung in >> the POST. Put the disk back on the other system, dd'ed /dev/zero over >> the disklabel, moved it back and the system booted. >> >> How extremely interesting. And weird. >> >> .... Ken >> >> > > such problems also seem to occur on some ASUS boards -- but only when SATA > drives are used. OpenBSD did boot fine from a USB stick: > http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=137862502730004&w=2 > > Best Regards > Andreas
Indeed. Experiments here show that plugging in a pci <-> sata card to avoid the Intel SATA chip makes the disk work fine. Disks smaller than 1TB also work. So I'm guessing it's something magical about 4K-sector disks presenting themselves as 512-byte sector disks that is the source of problems. I'm still a bit fogged as to how a disklabel triggers the problem. .... Ken
