Re: Memstick image differences between 8.x and 9.x

On Oct 9, 2011 8:52 AM, "Warren Block" <wblock_at_wonkity.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 8 Oct 2011, Glen Barber wrote:
>
>> On 10/8/11 5:40 PM, Warren Block wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sat, 8 Oct 2011, Glen Barber wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 10/8/11 2:21 PM, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Are there any general structural differences between FreeBSD 8 and 9
>>>>>> memstick
>>>>>> images which could be at fault here?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The new memstick image uses GPT instead of MBR partitioning.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> GPT should have no impact on booting from the memory stick, as far as I
>>>> am aware.
>>>
>>>
>>> Memory stick should not be a problem, but some of the Lenovo notebooks
>>> hate GPT, even with a PMBR:
>>>  http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=26304
>>>  http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=26759
>>>
>>
>> Ugh, that's annoying.  I'm half-tempted to note this in the new
>> installer chapter, but I don't like the idea of such edge cases as these
>> to effectively turn that page into a pseudo-HCL.
>
>
> There are already a couple of notes about having to use MBR with XP and
other older operating systems.  But instead of updating them, I'd rather see
somebody with one of the affected systems contact somebody with influence at
Lenovo and say "hey, the FreeBSD guys are talking about making your broken
GPT support famous" followed quickly by a BIOS update.
>
I believe this is actually a case of the memstick image being an improperly
formatted GPT as there is no backup partition table at the end of the
volume.

The only sensible answer is to not use GPT for the memstick image.

I not said this,loud enough yet but this is a show stopper for 9.0-RELEASE
and must be fixed.

We can't have a major release that modern systems cannot install with one of
now most popular install methods.

As a first step, Andriy Gapon has provided a quick patch for makefs(8) so it
can create filesystems with UFS labels (as bsdinstall relys on labels).

If you want to fix your memstick, create a copy of the partition table at
the end of the volume and it should boot.