Re: Installboot uses wrong device for secondary boot loader

On Saturday 28 April 2018 22:21:08 Eric Zylstra wrote:
> I'm installing 6.3 on a RAID1. Install was fine until ending with an error
> message, "invalid boot record signature…".
> I manually ran installboot:
> >. installboot -v -r /mnt sd4
>
> Hand transcription:
>
> Using /mnt as root
> Installing bootstrap on /dev/rsd4c
> Using first-stage /mnt/usr/mdec/biosboot, second-stage /mnt/usr/mdec/boot
> sd4: softraid volume with 2 disk(s)
> sd4: installing boot loader on softraid volume
> /mnt/usr/mdec/boot is 6 blocks x 16384 bytes
> sd0a: installing boot blocks on /dev/rsd0c, part offset 144
> Master boot record (MBR) at sector 0
> Install boot: invalid boot record signature (0x0000) @ sector 0
>
> I did not typo the secondary boot block install. It attempts to install on
> sd0 instead of sd4 as specified in my command.

In order to boot a softraid volume, the underlying disks have to be bootable
with the first stage boot block being installed in the MBR (at least for
i386/amd64). This is why it's looked at sd4, then gone to install the first
stage boot block on sd0... however there is no MBR on this device to install
it into. This suggests that you've not run fdisk correctly - but with
insufficient details I can only guess.