From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 4 17:17:55 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 529B1106566B for ; Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:17:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu) Received: from dc.cis.okstate.edu (dc.cis.okstate.edu [139.78.103.93]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2898A8FC17 for ; Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:17:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: from dc.cis.okstate.edu (localhost.cis.okstate.edu [127.0.0.1]) by dc.cis.okstate.edu (8.14.2/8.13.8) with ESMTP id o24HHkVT027574 for ; Thu, 4 Mar 2010 11:17:46 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu) Message-Id: <201003041717.o24HHkVT027574@dc.cis.okstate.edu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <27572.1267723066.1@dc.cis.okstate.edu> Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:17:46 -0600 From: Martin McCormick Subject: Booting MFS from Secondary Partition X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:17:55 -0000 I have hit one of these impenetrable walls in which nothing seems to work but I know it should. I have tried several versions of /boot.config to no avail. The idea is exactly the same principle as described in depenguinator which is software that lets one use grub in Linux to install FreeBSD on a working Linux system. The idea is to steal the swap partition, put mfsboot there, and then tell grub to boot from that partition rather than the normal active one. The manual for boot.config makes me think I should be able to just put in the information describing the secondary partition and it should cause a boot from that one but: /boot.config: 1:ad(0,b)/boot/loader -P FreeBSD/i386 boot Default: 1:ad(0,b)/boot/loader boot: error 1 lba 0 No /boot/loader The mfsboot image works when started from the primary partition so I am stuck as to why boot.config is not starting from that secondary partition. The present boot.config is: 1:ad(0,b)/boot/loader -P If mfsbsd was starting, shouldn't it see its boot loader? Is there a mfsbsd discussion list? Surely, somebody else has hit this brick wall, also.