I find it weird that it worked for you.
installboot doesn't set the BIOC_SCBOOTABLE flag.
Confirm by rg BIOC_SCBOOTABLE /usr/src/ .

I also used the hex dump to confirm, as suggested by Crystal.
Unfortunately, her suggestion of using a hex editor has no chance.
There is a checksum in softraidvar.h: sr_metadata.ssd_checksum, right near
sr_metadata._sdd_invariant.ssd_vol_flags, where the BIOC_SCBOOTABLE flag
apparently resides.

On Thu, Oct 8, 2026 at 10:49 PM Zé Loff <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 08, 2026 at 09:55:33PM +0200, 山卡洛 wrote:
> > Got it: while "roaming", the soft RAID partition metadata appears to
> have been overwritten.
> > Specifically, BIOC_SCBOOTABLE is unset, as shown in /softraid_amd64.c in
> srprobe():
> >                 if (bv->sbv_state != BIOC_SVOFFLINE)
> >                         printf(" sr%d%s", bv->sbv_unit,
> >                             bv->sbv_flags & BIOC_SCBOOTABLE ? "*" : "");
> > which appears to be called from efiboot.c.
> >
> > When I boot, offered are:
> >
> > disk: hd0 hd1 sr0* sr1
> >
> > meaning that sr1 has lost the bootable flag.
> >
> > Now: how do i set this flag on that RAID partition on the external disk?
> > Bioctl is not able to set it.
> > Any ideas?
> >
> > On 26-10-08.15:11, 山卡洛 wrote:
> > > I installed OpenBSD on an external drive with FDE and password (not
> > > keydisk). The use case is to check if a new notebook is supported (it
> is
> > > not).
> > >
> > > After trying to boot on that new notebook, the external drive doesn't
> boot
> > > anymore. The encrypted partition is not recognized by the boot loader:
> it
> > > doesn't ask for a password. Yet, I can decrypt and mount that disk
> from my
> > > regular OpenBSD with no problems.
> > >
> > > I can force the boot loader to open the encrypted drive by booting
> > > sr1a:/bsd. The kernel boots and fails to find a root partition. I
> tried to
> > > make it ask for the root partition (boot sr1a:/bsd -a), but it doesn't
> see
> > > it: it only offers sd0 (the encrypted NVME) and sd1 (the encrypted
> SSD).
> > >
> > > I also tried to run installboot from my regular system against the
> opened
> > > and mounted SSD: didn't change anything. Any ideas what went wrong?
> > >
> > > The information from bioctl -v and disklabel -h doesnt help: everything
> > > looks good.
> > >
> > > Thank you.
> >
>
> Weird.  Running installboot on the decrypted volume always worked for
> me.  I.e., if sd0 is the physical drive (encrypted), I assemble the
> decrypted volume with bioctl, and then run installboot on the resulting
> volume (e.g. sd1).
>
> --
>
>

Reply via email to