1.8.x: fdisk and disklabel fails to operate disk

[walt]

Tero Mäntyvaara wrote:
. ..
> 	fdisk -BI da6 (system disk is da4)
> 
> but then I get that message that drive is not configured. :-/
> I get same result if I use disklabel to "dedicate" drive

Random ideas:  do you actually have a /dev/da6?  Does dmesg
show a da6 during boot?

I have no experience with dedicated drives -- are you sure
that you need one?  The disklabel manpage says most newer
machines/disks should have a regular DOS partition table
first and then a disklabel on one slice.  I don't know why
it says that.

Also, I seem to recall that using the -r flag with disklabel
sometimes helps on disks with no prior disklabel.