Re: winxp freebsd dual boot with freebsd on second HD

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sat, Sep 18, 2004 at 05:20:35PM -0700, Abe Olson wrote:
 
> The instructions say:
> "Other operating systems, in particular Windows® 95, have been known to 
> overwrite an existing MBR with their own. If this happens to you, or you 
> want to replace your existing MBR with the FreeBSD MBR then use the 
> following command:
> 
> # fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 device
> 
> Where device is the device that you boot from . . ."

You have to do that to all bootable drives in your machine -- so
assuming your Windows disk is ad0 and your FreeBSD disk is ad2, you'ld
run:

# fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 ad0
# fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 ad2

In either case, you shouldn't need to rewrite the partition table.

See also boot0cfg(8) for a tool that lets you configure exactly how
the boot blocks work.  Indeed, you can use boot0cfg(8) instead of
fdisk(8) to achieve your ends:

# boot0cfg -B -b /boot/boot0 ad0
# boot0cfg -B -b /boot/boot0 ad2

boot0cfg only ever affects the boot blocks; unlike fdisk it doesn't do
anything with partition tables, other than allow you to choose which
slices to boot from.

Note that the boot0 boot block is very minimal -- it fits into a
single 512 byte sector -- and that many people prefer 3rd party boot
managers like GAG: http://gag.sourceforge.net/ which, while quite a
bit bigger, have a much friendlier user interface.

Cheers,

Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.   26 The Paddocks
  Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK


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winxp freebsd dual boot with freebsd on second HD

[Abe Olson]

In the handbook it says that, in cases where you have freebsd on the 
second disk and windows on the first, that you have to install the 
freebsd boot manager on both disks. I discovered this after I had 
installed freebsd. I am currently trying to install the freebsd boot 
manager on my first disk by following the instructions here: 
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/boot-blocks.html

The instructions say:
"Other operating systems, in particular Windows® 95, have been known to 
overwrite an existing MBR with their own. If this happens to you, or you 
want to replace your existing MBR with the FreeBSD MBR then use the 
following command:

# fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 device
Where device is the device that you boot from . . ."
When I run this command, it asks me if I want to write a new boot block 
and then it asks me if I want to write a new partition table (We finally 
arrive at my question) Won't writing a partition table on my windows 
disk destroy the data on that disk? I tried saying no to writing a 
partition table but I still cannot boot both OS's from the first disk.

Thanks for your time and knowledge folks.
abe
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