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Date:      Fri, 13 Oct 2000 07:19:30 -0500 (CDT)
From:      Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
To:        "Mikael Larsson" <u21112218@telia.com>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Multiple OS(Freebsd, Linux and windows 2000)
Message-ID:  <14822.64978.943645.170823@guru.mired.org>
In-Reply-To: <132064579@toto.iv>

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Mikael Larsson writes:

Please disable the HTML code your mailer is sending to the list. One
copy - in plain text format - is best.

> I will try to install multiple os on my computer, there was no problem
> when I had a small harddisk and windows 98. But this time I have a 30G
> harddisk and windows 2000.
> 
> The first problem I got was that I can not boot a os after 1024 sectors.

I assume you mean 1024 cylinders. Rumor has it that the FreeBSD boot
loader will work beyond 1024 cylinders, but I don't use it, so can't
verify that. Sysinstall certainly doesn't seem to know about it,
though.

> So I wonder if I can make a small windows partion(2G), and then make a
> small freebsd partion(5M) using "custom install". I will then make a
> small Linux partion(5M) thing using fdisk in Linux. When installing
> freebsd I mount the small freebsd partion to "/boot", and all other dir
> to a new allocatede partion. Then I proceed with Linux in the same way
> I can then allocate the rest of the hard disk to windows.

Note that Unix systems have had "partitions" - meaning something
different than what DOS does - since the 70s. FreeBSD preserves that
meaning, and calls what DOS calls partitions "slices". FreeBSD treats
each slice like a disk, and puts Unix partitions inside of those, as
separate chunks of disk. I prefer this, because it means I can install
a FreeBSD system - complete with swap - with only one slice.

The Linux /boot method won't work for FreeBSD. On the other hand, the
slice/partition stuff means you only have to get the FreeBSD *root*
partition (which can be the first part of a slice) inside the 1024
cylinder limit.

To take advantage of this, your disk layout starts with your Windows
slice. Then have a small Linux slice (5M seems small, but if it works,
it works). Then have a full-size FreeBSD slice, and make sure the root
partition is inside of the 1024 cylinder limit. Then have an extended
slice, and put the rest of your Linux system in that, as well as
whatever you want to give to Windows. While I've not tried putting
linux things in an extended partition, I know the FreeBSD method
works; I'm doing it.

> The next problem are how I should boot the system. I asume that I should
> keep windows 2000 bootloader. But I don=B4t know what file in windows
> 2000 I have to edit (have been told that file is named boot.ini in NT),
> neither do I know what to right in that file. So please help!!

Well, a freebsd list is the wrong place to ask about tweaking the
Windows 2000 bootloader. I'm not sure if booteasy will boot Windows2K,
but I'd be surprised if grub (/usr/ports/sysutils/grub) wouldn't -
I've as yet to see something it wouldn't boot.

	<mike



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