Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 11:29:32 -0500 From: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@msu.edu> To: Steve Lake <steve.lake@raiden.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Booting a Freebsd HD on a windows box? Message-ID: <20061205162932.GB34126@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.2.20061205000318.00bedec0@192.168.0.30> References: <5.2.0.9.2.20061205000318.00bedec0@192.168.0.30>
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On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 12:08:20AM -0500, Steve Lake wrote:
> Hi all. I'm looking to merge two of my machines in my home office
> into one to free up the second one for other uses, but one is a windows
> machine, the second is my freebsd 5.3x machine. Can I just move the HD
> from the Freebsd machine over to the windows machine and add something to
> the boot.ini file to make it bootable from the windows boot prompt, or do I
> have to do something else? Or can I just mirror the HD from the BSD box
> into an image file, then just mount and boot that image using Vmware and
> run it as a virtual machine? I'm trying to find the simplest, most hassle
> free way to merge the two machines without much tinkering with the existing
> installs. Any suggestions is welcome. I only picked merging the bsd box
> into the windows machine because the windows machine has the better
> hardware.
Well, probably almost.
That will be making a dual-boot machine. I have several in dual boot.
The only odd thing is doing it by combining two already made disks
rather than doing it from scratch.
First, you probably want the MS system to be in first disk the system
recognizes. It is happier that way.
You will have to rewrite the MBR on that first disk and put the
FreeBSD MBR there. It will be able to boot either the MS or the FreeBSD
system, but the MS MBR will not.
You should be able to rewrite the MBR any time
You may need to do that from a bootable fixit CD.
NOTE: that both disks will need to have the FreeBSD MBR, but maybe
one currently running FreeBSD already has it. It would hurt
to make sure as it is possible to have installed a FreeBSD only
system without the MBR.
You will probably also have to modify the fstab and possibly some other
configuration files on the FreeBSD disk to reflect different addresses.
Since the disk will then look like ad1 or da1 instead of ad0 or da0.
(Of course ad0->ad1 for IDE type disk or da0->da1 for SCSI type)
You would want to modify the /etc/fstab file just before the very last
time taking it down before making the change.
Otherwise, it should work OK.
Now, here is another thing to consider. Now would be an excellent
time to move to a more up-to-date version of FreeBSD. Try installing 6.1
or waiting a few days and installing 6.2 when it comes out.
Have fun, Good luck,
////jerry
> Steven Lake
> Owner/Technical Writer
> Raiden's Realm
> www.raiden.net
> A friendly web community
>
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