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Date:      Fri, 31 Mar 2000 15:17:02 +1000
From:      "Taras M. Dowhaluk" <taras@BuggerIT.com.au>
To:        questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Boot FreeBSD from Windows NT NTLDR
Message-ID:  <200003310517.PAA12775@sr14.nsw-remote.bigpond.net.au>

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There is a note on this topic at http://www.freebsd.org/FAQ/admin.html, 
however, I had to do a tad more to have FreeBSD boot via Windows NT 
NTLDR when FreeBSD lives entirely on another spindle to the NT installation.
The purpose here was that once an option was chosen from a boot menu I 
didn't want to be prompted again.This post is for the archive.

My disks are as follows:
spindle 0: ptn 1: FAT drive C:, NTLDR, BOOT.INI.
             : ptn 2: NTFS
spindle 1: ptn 1: FreeBSD 3.2-RELEASE, da1s1a, da1s1b
             : ptn 2: NTFS

When I installed FreeBSD I chose not to alter the MBR.
My BOOT.INI for bsd reads:
C:\BOOTSECT.BSD="FreeBSD 3.2"

I created BOOTSECT.BSD thus:
* ensure you have a backup of MBR and PBS from both disks.
  I used the NTRESKIT DISKSAVE when booted from a DOS floppy.
  Good idea if you have FAT/NTFS to have a DOS boot floppy with
  DISKSAVE, NTFSDOS etc, and a copy of all the various boot sectors.

* boot into FreeBSD by whatever means (I installed OSBS temporarily.
   I would have kept OSBS except it doesn't show all the OS choices I have.)

*  as root,
   boot0cfg -v -B -d 0x81 -o noupdate,setdrv -f /tmp/BOOTSECT.BSD -t 1 da1
   I ran this twice to get a copy of the new MBR1 into /tmp/BOOTSECT.BSD

* copy /tmp/BOOTSECT.BSD to C:\BOOTSECT.BSD by whatever means.

* reboot.

If you now choose "FreeBSD 3.2" from the NT boot menu, you should briefly 
see the FreeBSD boot manager, then it should boot FreeBSD.

The problems I had were:
1. With booteasy installed on both spindles using BOOTINST, the MBR0 
would be corrupted when booteasy saved the selection made during the boot 
process. So I was able to boot FreeBSD, but then I'd lose MBR0.

2. Using boot0 out-of-the-box got me nowhere as MBR1 wasn't prepared.
    If I installed booteasy onto MBR1 using /stand/sysinstall then I'd boot
    FreeBSD but corrupt MBR0.

3. When I installed boot0 with boot0cfg onto spindle 1 without noupdate, 
once again, MBR0 would be corrupted when the selection was made during 
the boot process.

4. When I installed boot0 with boot0cfg onto spindle1 without setdrv, I'd get 2 
boot manager menus. The first prompted me with F1 FreeBSD and F5 
Drive1, where F1 loaded NTLDR, and F5 prompting with F1 FreeBSD and F5 
Drive0, where finally F1 would boot FreeBSD.


regards, taras

--
"FreeBSD - the power to serve."

Taras M. Dowhaluk
BuggerIT Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia
fax: +61 2 9894 4717



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