Re: no partition entries for /dev/ad3

On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, ecsd wrote:

> The chronology is that I booted the system, did the disklabel -w -r ad3
> auto, turned around to disklabel -e /dev/ad3s1c (as I would normally
> do), and was told that /dev/ad3s1c did not exist. Then I wrote in here
> asking for help. ad3s1c does not exist.

Since it looks like you already have a working FreeBSD system, can you try
running /stand/sysinstall ?  At that point, you can choose "Configure" and
the Fdisk and Label choices are generally a much freindlier interface to
getting a disk online.

While "Real Men Use the Command Line", I have found more than enough
mysterious situations that /stand/sysinstall just seems to get right even
though what I type at command line should be the same thing.  Sometimes I
have to do the slice configuration, reboot the machine, and *then* edit
the label.  Whatever.  I don't use disklabel, bsdlabel, or fdisk often
enough to memorize the options and procedures; consequently, everytime I
have to configure a random storage device I'm effectively a newbie.

Also, I have lost track of the number of times that I have pulled out and
booted a RedHat rescue CD in order so that I can get a slice table that
Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD (admittedly not all the fault lies with
FreeBSD) can all agree on.

Configuring disk slices and partitions in FreeBSD sucks, but nobody is
going to fix it.  It's grubby, grunt work that a company like RedHat has
to pay someone to do.  The person who does the rewrite for FreeBSD will
only catch grief when it has bugs, but will get neither praise nor money
when it works.

I can only fix one of those things. ;)  To whomever wrote the Fdisk and
Label editor in sysinstall:  Thanks.  You did a good job, and I thank you
for it.

-a