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Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 15:03:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Peter Schmiedeskamp <pschmied@yahoo.com>
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Subject: Booting non-freebsd partition from loader(8)?
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Hello, I have a question that google seems to be
unable to answer.

My question: Is it possible to boot from a non-freebsd
partition after loader(8) is already in memory? 
Ultimately, I would like to see the familiar boot menu
(where Chuck gives me all sorts of options such as
booting with and without ACPI support) with another
option "Boot Windows from partition X."

I understand this is a bit of an odd usage, so I'll
explain why I would like to do this rather than the
standard hard disk "F1 DOS", "F2 FreeBSD" method.

I'm using a tftp-enabled pxeboot that boots a small
MFS-based freebsd.  I would like to give users the
option of booting from the harddrive or booting from
the network.  PC Bios screens are unfortunately rather
inconsistent and cumbersome to navigate.  So, I would
like to always get a consistent boot menu from the
network.  Getting this from the network allows me to
update this boot menu centrally.

So, any thoughts?  Is it possible to chain load
another operating system in this fashion?

-Peter

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