*BSD News Article 34527


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From: rpritz@panix.com (richard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development
Subject: Re: FreeBSD 2.0: someone please fix mount_pcfs
Date: 18 Aug 1994 10:15:06 -0400
Organization: usenet central
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Michael Borowiec (mikebo@MCS.COM) wrote:
: It would be nice if mount_pcfs would mount a DOS partition from a
: DOS only hard disk (one without a UNIX disk label). I have two SCSI
: drives, one exclusively FreeBSD and the other exclusively DOS.
: Depending on which OS I want to run, I simply swap SCSI ID 0 and 1
: and re-boot. Having used a boot manager for quite some time, and
: having trashed and re-built my DOS partition more times than I care
: to remember, IMHO this is a much better solution.

while it is not that hard to disklabel a dos only drive, you are 
absolutely right. if other os's can do it (including linux), why can't 
freebsd read a drive without requiring that the drive be disklabeled?
seems like a hassle for users, with no particular gain. 

what are we missing?

btw, there is a small gap on your drive before the beginning of dos. the 
disklabel can be placed in the gap. use fdisk to check where dos begins.