Re: re-fdisk'ing a partition - permission denied?

> Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 21:08:57 +0100
> From: Josef Karthauser <joe_at_FreeBSD.org>
> Sender: owner-freebsd-current_at_freebsd.org
> 
> 
> --vtzGhvizbBRQ85DL
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> 
> I'm trying to repartition the drive in my laptop - trashing the XP
> partition to make space for a stable file system so I can test USB code.
> It appears that something has changed though since I last attempted this
> kind of thing and I just get errors now.
> 
> The drive looks like this:
> 
>     ******* Working on device /dev/ad0 *******
>     parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are:
>     cylinders=3D77520 heads=3D16 sectors/track=3D63 (1008 blks/cyl)
> 
>     Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1
>     parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are:
>     cylinders=3D77520 heads=3D16 sectors/track=3D63 (1008 blks/cyl)
> 
>     Media sector size is 512
>     Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1
>     Information from DOS bootblock is:
>     The data for partition 1 is:
>     sysid 7 (0x07),(OS/2 HPFS, NTFS, QNX-2 (16 bit) or Advanced UNIX)
> 	start 63, size 8376417 (4090 Meg), flag 0
> 	    beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1;
> 	    end: cyl 553/ head 239/ sector 63
>     The data for partition 2 is:
>     sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
> 	start 8385930, size 69754230 (34059 Meg), flag 80 (active)
> 	    beg: cyl 554/ head 150/ sector 1;
> 	    end: cyl 1023/ head 239/ sector 63
>     The data for partition 3 is:
>     <UNUSED>
>     The data for partition 4 is:
>     <UNUSED>
>     In-Reply-To: <1062947334.436.12.camel_at_quark.avioc.org>
> 
> If I repartition the first partition either using sysinstall or fdisk
> I get an error when the write occurs.
> 
> Is there a sysctl to switch now?  I'm not running in any kind of special se=
> cure
> mode so I would expect it to work.  Did the symantics change with geom?

Joe,

You have hit one of the main issues still to be resolved in GEOM. (I
don't know that phk thinks it's a problem to be resolved or a feature
to be documented.)

In any case, since GEOM was added you can no longer slice or label an
active device. As a result, the only way I know of to change slices or
labels on V5 is to boot off of CD or floppy Fixit disks or install
disks. (I just had to do this on my laptop this morning.)
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman_at_es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634