# After selecting ada0 for partitioning, freebsd (seems to claim) that da0 will also be erased.



## mikethe1wheelnut (Mar 21, 2021)

Greetings.  My apologies if this has already been explained somewhere -if so, please direct me.

When partitioning the disk during install, it allows you to choose which disk you want to install FreeBSD on.  I've booted from usb, so it lists both the computers hard-drive, (ada0), and the usb, (da0).  So I select the hard-drive.  A few prompts later (MBR chosen -I trued GPT earlier and all the shit hit the fan, it didn't work..), I get the partition editor.  The partition editor lists two disks:  ada0, and da0.  One is 119 GB, the other 14 GB.  So one is the hard-drive, the other is the usb.   So here I am freaking out -> it seems to be implying that it's going to do something funky with the usb!  ..It probably won't, it's probably being nice and telling me what's there on the usb as a courtesy and won't actually -do- anything to it, but I don't know that.  If I try to erase the usb partitions, as my way of telling the system to leave them alone, it won't let me.  So is this normal?  To avoid this, should I instead remove the usb-key before getting to this step?  If so, when?  Thanks! 

EDIT:  I took the leap and proceeded.  I've now put the usb back in the other computer, and all the files still seem to be there, so question answered!


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## richardtoohey2 (Mar 23, 2021)

I've been using FreeBSD for a while, and only just noticed this on a recent install.

It does _look_ like it's going to affect the install drive AND the USB/installer "drive", so I did a double-take.

Then decided that if it DID affect the installer it would be easy enough to re-create it and carried on with the install - and nothing bad happened.

But agree - it does seem a bit confusing.


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## zirias@ (Mar 23, 2021)

mikethe1wheelnut said:


> A few prompts later (MBR chosen -I trued GPT earlier and all the shit hit the fan, it didn't work..), I get the partition editor.


Just some unrelated advice: Better try GPT again. Most certainly, you did something wrong, cause this doesn't depend on hardware or anything and works reliably. GPT is nowadays the standard.

MBR partitioning has several drawbacks:

 Limited to a total number of 4 partitions
 No storage space beyond 2TB can be addressed
 Stored in the single 512byte MBR sector, together with (legacy) bootcode, so updating either must be handled with care


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