From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 20 22:18:04 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B2D7416A41F for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:18:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from oberman@es.net) Received: from postal2.es.net (postal2.es.net [198.128.3.206]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A7C7643D73 for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:17:59 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from oberman@es.net) Received: from ptavv.es.net ([198.128.4.29]) by postal2.es.net (Postal Node 2) with ESMTP (SSL) id IBA74465; Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:17:56 -0800 Received: from ptavv.es.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ptavv.es.net (Tachyon Server) with ESMTP id 89C4345047; Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:17:55 -0800 (PST) To: delphi123@zebra.net In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:43:25 EST." <441F21FD.1000209@mindspring.com> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:17:55 -0800 From: "Kevin Oberman" Message-Id: <20060320221755.89C4345047@ptavv.es.net> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Urgent FreeBSD Boot question! X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:18:04 -0000 > Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:43:25 -0500 > From: Benjamin Sher > Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org > > Dear friends: > > I decided to go out and buy the latest issue of Linux Format with the > FreeBSD 6 CD. I am very glad I did. FreeBSD is tough to install, but > after spending several hours I finally succeeded in doing a perfect > installation. ONE BIG PROBLEM: When I removed the CD and rebooted, I got > into my Windows XP (I have two separate disks, one for Windows, one of > FreeBSD). There was no way to get into FreeBSD. Naturally, I went into > my BIOS and changed the boot sequence from CD to Hard Drive. That only > caused my system to boot into Windows XP. > > I read the instructions about the FreeBSD Boot Manager. It said clearly > that it should allow switching from one OS to another. But I did not see > any configuration for that. How, may I ask, do I do this while > installing FreeBSD? How do I change this configuration to guarantee that > all my work won't go down the toilet and that when I reboot, I will see > Lilo or whatever as a boot manager that will allow me to select either > FreeBSD or Windows? > > I am looking forward to solving this and then to actually seeing FreeBSD > for the first time. This is really more appropriate to questions, but I'll make some suggestions that might get you going. Just to clarify, this assumes that you have 2 physical disk drives, one containing Windows and one containing FreeBSD and that Windows is installed on the first drive and FreeBSD on the second. When you installed FreeBSD, you installed the FreeBSD boot Manager on the second hard drive, but the bootstrap on the first drive still has the standard MBR. As a result, it simply boots Windows. There are several solutions available. The easiest is to just put the FreeBSD boot manager on the first drive. If you do this, you will get a prompt when you boot that looks like: F1 DOS F5 Other Disk At this point, you can press either F1 for Windows and F5 to boot the next disk. Pressing F5 will give you F1 FreeBSD F5 Other Disk At this point, you can press F1 to boot FreeBSD or F5 to go back to the first disk. The FreeBSD Boot Manager is smart in that it remembers a boot and defaults to that boot on the next bootstrap operation. To write the MBR on the first disk, just boot the CD and select the holographic shell. At that point, enter the command: boot0cfg -B ad0 That should do the trick. There are several other ways to do this, but this is the first one I thought of for your situation. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634