Date: Tue, 3 Oct 95 20:29 WET DST From: uhclem%nemesis@fw.ast.com (Frank Durda IV) To: tony@thing.sunquest.com, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: MBR/Win95/IDE (3 questions) Message-ID: <m0t0Iej-000J6zC@nemesis.lonestar.org>
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[0]-- win95 --
[0]I've heard a lot of people complaining about not being able to configure
[0]Win95 and FreeBSD via the FreeBSD bootloader. Has anyone been able to do
[0]this ?
[0]Any similar problems with FreeBSD and NT ?
Mine works fine. Here was the procedure I used: Started with
disk with no partitions, booted a MS-DOS 6.2 (or later). Used
FDISK to define part of disk I wanted Microsoft to use. Rebooted and
installed MS-DOS. Then booted from the hard disk, installed Windows '95
(mine was from CD-ROM). Once Windows '95 was installed, loaded a
*real* operating system by booting FreeBSD 2.0.5R from boot floppy.
Installed FreeBSD 2.0.5R using remainder of disk, selected default
boot manager.
Now when I boot, press [F2] for FreeBSD. It says "F1 dos", but if you
press [F1] you will boot Windows '95. If you really want DOS,
press [F1] and as soon as it says "Starting Windows '95", press [F5]
several times. Of course, Windows '95 has replaced DOS 6.x with DOS 7,
but other than that things work fine.
On another system, I had DOS 7, Windows 3.11 and Windows '95 all
in the DOS partition, plus FreeBSD 2.0.5R. All four systems are
usable by pushing the right keys during or after booting.
I have always found installing FreeBSD *first* on a hard disk and then
trying to get Microsoft products to co-exist to be very difficult.
Windows '95 also seems to be confused by the validity of non-MS
partitions, although it doesn't silently wipe them out anymore like it
did in the Beta releases.
[0]-- IDE --
[0]I'm currently 100% SCSI, but will likely be getting El Cheapo EIDE disc for
[0]Windoze.
[0]
[0]If the bios boots from the IDE disc, which I think is the default
[0](I'll clearly need the FreeBSD bootloader on the IDE disk) does this
[0]imply that the boot default (if I don't select a device) will have to be
[0]a slice on the IDE disk (i.e Windoze, not FreeBSD).
On 99% of the systems out there, you must have a bootable partition
("active") on the IDE drive, and to do a two-way boot, the active
partition needs to be something other than a DOS partition. (FYI,
Microsoft knows calls divisions of the hard disk "partitions" - "slices"
are a FreeBSDish creation.)
You can put a very tiny FreeBSD partition that then lets you boot
from SCSI (or even a second IDE drive). Or just put your root partition
over on the IDE drive. Root is supposed to be small.
[0]Basically back to the above question of how the boot loader works, how (if
[0]at all) I can configure it. I'd like the default to always be boot
[0]FreeBSD, even if I the bios boots IDE.
[0]
[0]Otherwise, I guess I'm looking at disabling IDE booting in the BIOS,
[0]and then see if the FreeBSD boot loader from the SCSI disc will be
[0]able to boot Windoze off the IDE disc.
As far as I know, there are only a few systems that allow IDE devices to
be present and the boot device to *NOT* be IDE. The BIOSes that support
this scheme cheat and look at the primary IDE drive and if no partitions
are marked active, the BIOS will pretend there was no IDE and let SCSI take
over. These BIOSes are *VERY* rare, and I have only seen them in systems
with integrated IDE and SCSI interfaces. There is usually a CMOS setup
option that says "Boot from IDE Y/N".
Frank Durda IV
uhclem%nemesis@fw.ast.com
"Using the net, you can see a picture of Pikes Peak, which is updated
every hour, or a picture of Bill Gates' house, which is updated once a
week. The difference is that Pikes Peak doesn't move, but they keep
having to move the camera further back at Bill's place." :-) - (C) 1995 FDIV
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