On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 01:40:29PM +0000, Simon Morgan wrote: > I'm currently running OpenBSD/i386 3.8 on an AMD64 machine and just went to > install the latest AMD64 snapshot. The hard drive I'm installing to has a > number of ext3 partitions contained in an extended partition. > > When I installed OpenBSD/i386 3.8 on this machine I issued the D command > during the disklabel stage to start with a clean label and although all the > BSD partitions were removed, all the ext3 partitions remained. When I tried > the same with the amd64 snapshot, the ext3 partitions were not kept and the > only thing remaining was the c partition. Obviously I didn't want to go > ahead with the installation for fear of data loss so I would just like to > know if this is normal, whether it's a change in behaviour between 3.8 and > the snapshot or if it's an i386/amd64 thing. If it makes any difference, the > label I reset when installing 3.8 was left over from a FreeBSD install.
I see the same happening on 3.8-release vs. 3.8-current on i386 for systems with foreign filesystems. Not sure why. > I've had a look through the latest disklabel man page and it says: > > Note that when a disk has no real BSD disklabel, the kernel creates a de- > fault label so that the disk can be used. This default label will in- > clude other partitions found on the disk if they are supported on your > architecture. For example, on systems that support fdisk(8) partitions > the default label will also include DOS and Linux partitions. > > I'm assuming this behaviour also applies to the D command, in which case > does this mean that ext2/3 isn't supported on AMD64 machines? by default ext2fs is enabled for all architectures: $ grep -i ext2fs /usr/src/sys/conf/GENERIC option EXT2FS # Second Extended Filesystem > If I proceed > with the install, will the ext3 partitions still be there afterwards (even > if OpenBSD can't see them)? Normally, yes. However, you should make sure that all partitions in the disklabel are within the OpenBSD fdisk partition (normally and unless you have been doing strange things, they should). Then OpenBSD should leave your data in other fdisk partitions (like your ext3 partitions) alone. In any case it's a good idea to really understand what you are doing when altering partition tables, and you always have backups of your data, of course. If you want to access those ext3 partitions from OpenBSD they will need to be listed in the disklabel again. There is a section in the FAQ about foreign filesystems (14.16) and Nick has also rewritten 14.1 for hopefully better understanding. :) -- steven Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm
