NetBSD-5.0.2/distrib/notes/prep/upgrade

.\"	$NetBSD: upgrade,v 1.1 2006/04/05 18:37:00 garbled Exp $
.
When upgrading from a version of
.Nx*M
prior to 4.0, you will need to prepare the system manually before starting
sysinst.
The old boot partition code for
.Nx*M
required the boot image to be dd'd to the head of the root disk.
This created a floppy-sized partition entry of type PReP.
The
.Nx
partition was usually manually offset into the disk to avoid overwriting this
boot partition.
You will need to extend the size of the PReP boot partition out to the
beginning of the
.Nx
partition, and most likely offset it from the head of the disk by a few sectors.
Doing this will render your current version of
.Nx*M
unbootable.
Once this is accomplished, you will need to create a disklabel partition of
type boot that matches the location and size of the PReP MBR partition.
You could instead backup your current data, create proper PReP and
.Nx
partitions, and then restore your current data to those.
.
.Pp
Because of the difficulty in performing all these steps, it is recommended that
rather than attempt upgrade of
.Nx*M
you instead reinstall from scratch.  Future versions of
.Nx*M
will allow simple upgrade without these additional steps.
Sysinst can upgrade any machine which has a PReP boot partition of at least
2 MB in size, offset by at least 2 sectors from the beginning of the disk, and
has a matching disklabel partition of type boot.
.
.so ../common/upgrade