Unable to see current FreeBSD partitions from Slack install disc1

frankie_DJ · 01-30-2006, 09:47 PM

Hi everyone, I will post my question here, since I am trying to install Slackware, although the question might be more general. I am trying to install Slack10.2 on my office machine that had FreeBSD 6.0 installed on it for couple of days.

[Long story short, I wanted to try it out, but I had trouble installing Linux versions of Matlab and Mathematica on it, and I don't have time to play with it, so I wanna switch back to familiar Slack.]

ANyways... I put in the install disc 1 and I can't seem to be able to see the current partition table with fdisk. I mean

Code:

fdisk /dev/sda

gets me into fdisk, but when I type p, it's like there is nothing on the HD. Similarly, when I try to wipe the HD with

Code:

dd /dev/zero /dev/sda

, it says No more space on the disk. I also tried mounting the HD with

Code:

mount -t ufs /dev/sda /mnt

, but it says kernel doesn't support ufs filesystem. I tried several kernels bare.i, bareacpi.i, sata.i. Can someone tell me why is the current Freebsd partition table invisible to the install disc? I wanna be able to see the current partitions on the HD before I get rid of them, and I wanna be able to use dd utility to wipe off the HD. Thanks. My HD is Seagate ST3120026AS 3.18.

frankie_DJ · 01-31-2006, 02:47 PM

Will someone take a shot at this?

uselpa · 01-31-2006, 03:44 PM

When you install FBSD, you can dedicate the whole disk to it. In that case, you don't have a DOS-style partition table. I suppose that is what you did.
To install Slackware, try to create at least 2 partitions using fdisk or cfdisk (one for swap and one for the root file system). After that you should be able to run setup.
Of course you'll lose all that was on the disk before, I assume that that's OK.

j79zlr · 01-31-2006, 10:00 PM

To mount FreeBSD slices in linux you need to pass the ufstype=ufs2 option to mount.

http://www.j79zlr.com/howto.php?id=22

lestoil · 01-31-2006, 11:41 PM

can cfdisk delete bsd partitions? Above post says kernel needs ufs support. Compile a kernel to install SW? Is there a readily available program to erase the bsd partions or will bsd install disk delete them? Maybe RIP floppy can work.

j79zlr · 01-31-2006, 11:50 PM

I skimmed the first post, I thought the guy was trying to mount freebsd partitions in linux. You don't need support in the kernel to erase them. What exactly does p show you? Here is an example from one of my PC's with Linux and FBSD:

Code:

joe@gentoo ~ $ su -
Password:
root@gentoo ~ # fdisk /dev/hda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 9729.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        2611    20972826    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2            2612        5222    20972857+  83  Linux
/dev/hda3            5223        7833    20972857+  a5  FreeBSD
/dev/hda4            7834        9729    15229620    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Command (m for help):

frankie_DJ · 02-01-2006, 12:02 AM

It shows everything the same as yours, including
Device/Boot/Start/End/Blocks/Id/System line, but that's the last line of the output. Why are the partition tables made by FreeBSD invisible to fdisk? That's what's bugging me.

uselpa · 02-01-2006, 08:48 AM

In FBSD terminology, what we call a partition is called a "slice", and a partition is a part of a slice. So FBSD partitions are different from our (DOS) partitions. Same word, different sense.

As I said before, you probably dedicated the whole disk to FBSD during installation. In that case it will not use the partition scheme you are used to, i.e. not create any "slices", but consider the disk as one slice of FBSD. In that case you do not have a traditional partition table and fdisk will not show anything.

Google for "freebsd slice partition" for more information.

lestoil · 02-01-2006, 10:05 AM

FBSD forum says that gparted, fdisk, cfdisk, can delete the usf2 partitions. The FBSD install fdisk/cfdisk should do same-change a5 id to 83? Confirm at their forum.

rkrishna · 02-01-2006, 11:18 PM

just some coments only.
?>. try test2.6.s kernel
?>

Quote:

fdisk /dev/sda

are u sure that it is "/dev/sda "
first try #fdisk -l then get the name of ur disk
?>

Quote:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

is it showing some 700 mb instead of gbs.