Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 19:52:02 -0500 (EST) From: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@clunix.cl.msu.edu> To: mikemcg@ucla.edu Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Dual booting FreeBSD 4.7 and Windows XP Message-ID: <200212170052.gBH0q3F18007@clunix.cl.msu.edu> In-Reply-To: <016e01c2a553$7a2021f0$1a00a8c0@HOME> from "Mike McGranahan" at Dec 16, 2002 02:35:45 PM
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> > A reply on a subsequent thread on this list ( subject: Boot Manager / > Install ) stated that for the case of Windows XP on the first drive, and > FreeBSD on the second drive, I could use the FreeBSD loader on the > first/Windows XP drive, and leave a "standard MBR" on the second/FreeBSD > drive. I think maybe you are now past this question now, but that isn't quite right. The boot manager would need to be installed where the BIOS expects to find it - on the disk it wants to boot from. Then the boot mangler will deal with which disk the rest of the boot runs from. So if BIOS boots from disk 0 then the boot manager goes on that disk regardless of which disk FreeBSD or XP is on. The rest of the boot stuff goes on the disk and slice that you finally boot to. The FreeBSD install should put the boot manager in the right place. If it doesn't, then it is a bug. ////jerry > > > the bootmgr got installed in mbr of the drive you installed FreeBSD > > on. if you only have FreeBSD on that disk, you don't need the > > bootmgr there. > > > > /stand/sysinstall -> Configure -> Fdisk -> ad0 -> Q -> BootMgr > > -> ad1 -> Q -> Standard > > > > this should get you the FreeBSD boot loader in the MBR of the first > > (XP) drive, and standard MBR on the second (FBSD) drive. This above is right ^^^. Just note that here MBR (on disk 1) doesn't stand for boot manager, but is a standard Master Boot Record (I think the 'R' is Record). It just does a boot from its own slice and doesn't offer any selection. I think it is meaningless here, but it might do some additional thing after the boot manager hands off the boot to the next step beyond itself. > Will this solve my problem? Will the FreeBSD loader be aware of both Windows > XP and FreeBSD on the other disk? Or will I have to manually configure it? > (Just looking for someone to confirm that this works, no offense to the > poster, Roman Neuhauser.) The FreeBSD loader comes in to play way beyond the point of knowing anything about the difference of XP and FreeBSD. By that time, the selection has already been made and if the FreeBSD loader is running it loads up stuff from the slice it is in. Basically, the boot manager gets installed in a special place on the boot disk, before any real operating system. It allows you to select a slice from which to continue booting. Then it loads up the boot record from that slice and passes off control to it. The way it loads stuff and passes off control is (pretty much) OS independant - eg is stuck with following the old MS way. It doesn't really know what kind of OS is there. It just looks at the slices and gives you a list of the ones that look bootable. For some OSes, it has enough info to pick them out of a list. If it finds a bootable slice that it doesn't recognize, it just calls it '???' (but still knows how to load its boot sector and pass off control. For slices on disks that don't look bootable, it just ignores these and doesn't even list them in the menu. /jrm > > Thanks for your help. > > Mike > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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