From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Tue Nov 8 12:52:50 2016 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A7764C364E7 for ; Tue, 8 Nov 2016 12:52:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from smithi@nimnet.asn.au) Received: from sola.nimnet.asn.au (paqi.nimnet.asn.au [115.70.110.159]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 267D8818 for ; Tue, 8 Nov 2016 12:52:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from smithi@nimnet.asn.au) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sola.nimnet.asn.au (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id uA8CqjaQ051820; Tue, 8 Nov 2016 23:52:45 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from smithi@nimnet.asn.au) Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2016 23:52:45 +1100 (EST) From: Ian Smith To: Manish Jain cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How to restore FreeBSD boot manager on GPT disk ? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20161108231123.T41537@sola.nimnet.asn.au> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2016 12:52:50 -0000 In freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 649, Issue 3, Message: 3 On Tue, 8 Nov 2016 10:49:23 +0000 Manish Jain wrote: > One thing I have loved about FreeBSD over the years is the superbly > designed Boot Easy boot manager. If any other OS overwrites the MBR, it > is straightforward to restore with 'boot0cfg -B /dev/ada0' > > That command only works on MBR disks though, as far as I know. Is there > any equivalent command on a GPT disk ? Sadly, no. Noone has written a GPT equivalent of boot0cfg; perhaps it's too hard, or developers perceive no use for multi-booting; I don't know. Often people will suggest using the GPL'd GRUB; I suppose that works ok with GPT disks these days. You could research rather more complicated Boot Environments, about which I know nothing, but I don't think these enable a choice between e.g. BSD/s|Linux/s|Window/s systems as boot0cfg does. [ Corrections to any misperceptions are welcome! ] Jack L. offered: gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptboot -i 1 ada0 which restores the PMBR and GPT bootblocks to ada0p1, but that's not (yet?) able to provide or restore multi-boot options as such. Are you forced to use GPT, because of UEFI-only motherboards? cheers, Ian