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Date:      Fri, 9 Jan 2009 11:31:04 -0500
From:      Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@msu.edu>
To:        Grant Peel <gpeel@thenetnow.com>
Cc:        Kurt Buff <kurt.buff@gmail.com>, Steve Bertrand <steve@ibctech.ca>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD Boot Manager
Message-ID:  <20090109163104.GD2111@gizmo.acns.msu.edu>
In-Reply-To: <E68EFF8DA59D4DAE88199E1FFEF1A474@GRANTPC>
References:  <A52E216F2A494535806F4E9ED84D649D@GRANTLAPTOP> <a9f4a3860901081723v75e5d53ds5d4cd5a275383e18@mail.gmail.com> <4966B8E8.7070001@ibctech.ca> <E68EFF8DA59D4DAE88199E1FFEF1A474@GRANTPC>

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On Fri, Jan 09, 2009 at 09:40:58AM -0500, Grant Peel wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> For those that have been following this thread:
> 
> I now have Norton GoBack uninstalled and un-hooked from the MBR
> -Had to go to Symantec and get a rescue disk,
> -The rescue disk tried to un-hook GOBAck from the MBR,
>    -It found the MBR borken (due to the FreeBSD Boot Manager install),
>        -So the rescue disk ran all night restoring the original C-Drive,
> 
> -As of this morning, I once again have a bottoable windows system,
> -FreeBSD 6.4 is intalled, but,
> 
> -I have not boot manager so I cant get to the FReeBSD installation.
> 
> Can someone (please!) explain how to install the FreeBSD boot manager again?

Boot fixit from CD.   
  
  Do:
fdisk -B      
  or maybe you need:
fdisk -iB

Then try to reboot.

These should only affect sector 0  which is where the MBR goes.

What is screwing you up is that Norton GoBack.   I haven't used it, 
but it probably works like previous recovery utilities for Norton.
It rewrites the MBR to only boot its own stuff instead of a standard
system boot and clobbers anything else there.    It is supposed to
stash the original MBR somewhere and later put it back.  But it 
doesn't always work.   If it is initiated twice in a row, for example,
it saves the MBR and writes its own.   Then the next time it saves
the MBR (which is its own) which clobbers the original that it stashed
away and then writes its own MBR in the stash, thus making both copies
be its own MBR and the original is trashed.   

This is just one example of the way it can screw up that I have 
encountered (- and fixed using the FreeBSD fixit, even though it 
was an all Windows machine with no FreeBSD on it).   There are
probably more scenarios that end up with a similarly trashed MBR
from GoBack.

So, just try getting FreeBSD fixit to fix it.

////jerry
> 
> THanks all,
> 
> -Grant
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Steve Bertrand" <steve@ibctech.ca>
> To: "Grant Peel" <gpeel@thenetnow.com>
> Cc: "Kurt Buff" <kurt.buff@gmail.com>; <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 9:39 PM
> Subject: Re: FreeBSD Boot Manager
> 
> 
> >Grant Peel wrote:
> >>So then,
> >>
> >>IF we are able to restore the Windows MBR, and boot into windows, should
> >>we not be able to boot the machine with a bootable FreeBSD disk, then,
> >>use Sysinstall to restore the FreeBSD boot manager?
> >
> >Yes, that is exactly what I was getting at.
> >
> >Steve
> >_______________________________________________
> >freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
> >http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> >To unsubscribe, send any mail to 
> >"freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
> >
> >
> 
> 
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