Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 17:08:02 +0100 From: Mark Ovens <mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org> To: "Jasper O'Malley" <jooji@nickelkid.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: REVISED: Active partition problems with FreeBSD 4.0/NT dual-boot Message-ID: <20000610170801.F233@parish> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0006100856310.42150-100000@cornflake.nickelkid.com>; from jooji@nickelkid.com on Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 11:53:44AM -0400 References: <20000610022218.C232@parish> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0006100856310.42150-100000@cornflake.nickelkid.com>
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On Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 11:53:44AM -0400, Jasper O'Malley wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Jun 2000, Mark Ovens wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Jun 09, 2000 at 03:16:06PM -0400, Jasper O'Malley wrote:
> >
> > > I didn't boot off C:\BOOTSECT.BSD that time, I "hit F5, then hit F1" to
> > > boot back into FreeBSD (i.e. I did it entirely through the FreeBSD boot
> > > loader process). In fact, C:\BOOTSECT.BSD disappeared with everything else
> > > on the original NTFS partition when the partition table was overwritten ;)
> >
> > Yes, but those (F1... F5....) messages come from the FreeBSD loader
> > (boot0). NT obviously doesn't rewrite the MBR when installing.
>
> Nope, sure doesn't. But the thing is that, by this point, boot0 had
> already taken residence in the MBR of da0, so I wasn't dealing with a
> situation where I'd trashed the partition table again.
>
So when you re-installed NT it wrote a new PT to the MBR, which is
actually boot0?
> > > It did it again because the "active" flag in da0s1's partition
> > > table entry was cleared when I booted into FreeBSD. Upon reboot,
> > > the BIOS--seeing that no partitions were marked active on the
> > > lowest numbered BIOS drive-- threw out the error message and
> > > stopped the boot again. It's a bug, but it's not uncommon, from
> > > what I've seen in the freebsd-questions archive and elsewhere.
> >
This is beginning to sound familiar. When I used to install from CD
(I've been using cvsup for over a year now) I always used the "no boot
manager" option but when I rebooted after completing the install I
found that *no* partitions were set active and had to use Partition
Magic to turn one on.
> > The BIOS can't boot from anything other than the first drive, that's
> > what boot managers are all about.
>
> Right, but normally the BIOS doesn't bother checking for active partition
> on the first drive. Ordinarily, the BIOS just cares that there *is* a
> first disk, and hands control over to the MBR on the first disk, and the
> program in the MBR is normally what cares about active partitions and
> such. Because my particular BIOS is looking for an active partition
> before the MBR (in this case, boot0) gets control, it's not letting me
> boot unless I manually use fdisk to set the NTFS partition active (even if
> I just want to boot into FreeBSD).
>
I think that's why we've both seen the same "no active partition"
problem. I too have an Award BIOS (4.51PGM) on a Gigabyte m/b
(GA-586TX3). The term "brain-dead BIOS" in your original post seems to
be spot-on :)
> > Sorry for the problems [the FAQ] has caused but it was done in all good
> > faith.
>
> I understand :) It's really not a problem, I didn't have anything
> important on my NT partition. Other may people may, however, so it might
> be wise to remove the instruction altogether until the new wording is
> completed.
>
I've already submitted a PR with the new wording, docs/19174.
> Right now, my problem isn't really that boot0 is trashing my partition
> table anymore, it's that it's clearing the active flag on my NTFS
> partition when I boot into FreeBSD.
>
The only thing I can suggest now, other than getting a new m/b, is to
put / on da0 and /usr, /var, and swap on da1. This is the way
mine is setup and it works fine.
> Cheers,
> Mick
>
--
Want a lean, mean, computing machine?
Get rid of that excess FAT - install FreeBSD
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