AW: DragonFly BSD manual install: cannot boot

[Tobias Heilig]

Hi Martin,

first, let's have a look at this quote from the prologue section of fdisk(8) man page:

> In order for the BIOS to boot the kernel, certain conventions must be adhered to.
> Sector 0 of the disk must contain boot code, a slice table, and a magic number.
> BIOS slices can be used to break the disk up into several pieces. The BIOS brings
> in sector 0 and verifies the magic number. The sector 0 boot code then searches the
> slice table to determine which slice is marked ``active''.*This boot code then brings in the bootstrap from the active slice*  and, if marked bootable, runs it.


so, your first step

> fdisk -iB /dev/da0   # initialize sector 0 of the disk and install the MBR

is correct; namely initializing sector 0 with the mbr bootcode from /boot/mbr.


your second step

> # [...] I marked da0s1 as active.

is also correct.


now, the partition table is where you did a mistake, i guess. to my understanding
the first partition of the active slice should contain the bootstrap (/boot)
mentioned by the fdisk(8) quote to start your system. it is also done like that
in the example from the handbook [1]. this is missing in your partition layout.

so, maybe change this

> disklabel64 -e da0s1
>         a: 50G * HAMMER         # the root partition b: 8G * swap d: * 
> * HAMMER # the /home partition

to this instead

> disklabel64 -e da0s1
>         a: 1G * 4.2BSD       # the /boot partition (format as UFS) b: 
> 8G * swap d: 50G * HAMMER # the / partition e: * * HAMMER # the /home 
> partition

you can find further instructions on formatting the partitions afterwards as well
as copying the system data and editing the /boot/loader.conf and /etc/fstab files
under [1].

i hope i did understand everything correctly and this is of any help to you.

[1] https://www.dragonflybsd.org/docs/handbook/Installation/#index3h1

-- 
best regards,

Tobi

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