freebsd stable - Oct 2017 - Installing amd64 FreeBSD 11.1 in dual-boot with Windows 7 on an MBR partitioned disk

Hi there,

I try to install amd64 FreeBSD 11.1 in dual-boot with Windows 7 on an
MBR partitioned disk and I can't make it bootable. My Windows 7 uses
its standard MBR partitioning scheme (1. 100MB System Reserved
Partition; 2 - 127GB disk C partition) and there is about 112GB of
free unallocated disk space that I want to use to install FreeBSD on
it. As an installation media I use the
FreeBSD-11.1-RELEASE-amd64-mini-memstick.img flashed on a USB drive.

During the installation, if I choose to use Guided Partitioning Tool
and automatic partitioning of the free space, I get a pop-up message
that says:

=====The existing partition scheme on this disk
(MBR) is not bootable on this platform. To
install FreeBSD, it must be repartitioned.
This will destroy all data on the disk.
Are you sure you want to proceed?
             [Yes]          [No]
=====
If instead of the Guided Partitioning Tool I choose to partition the
disk manually I get a similar message as a warning and the
installation process continues without an error, but the installed
FreeBSD system is not bootable. Installing boot0 manually (boot0cfg
-Bv /dev/ada0) doesn't fix it. The boot0 boot loader is able to boot
Windows but it's unable to start the FreeBSD boot process. It only
prints hash symbols when I press F3 (the FreeBSD slice/MBR partition
number).

I consider this as a critical bug. But maybe there is some workaround
that allows me to install the FreeBSD 11.1 as a second OS without
repartitioning the entire disk?

My hardware is an Intel Core i7 4790 3.6GHz based machine with 16GB
RAM. The ada0 disk is 238GB SanDisk SD8SBAT256G1122 (SSD).

On 10/6/2017 10:17, Rostislav Krasny wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I try to install amd64 FreeBSD 11.1 in dual-boot with Windows 7 on an
> MBR partitioned disk and I can't make it bootable. My Windows 7 uses
> its standard MBR partitioning scheme (1. 100MB System Reserved
> Partition; 2 - 127GB disk C partition) and there is about 112GB of
> free unallocated disk space that I want to use to install FreeBSD on
> it. As an installation media I use the
> FreeBSD-11.1-RELEASE-amd64-mini-memstick.img flashed on a USB drive.
>
> During the installation, if I choose to use Guided Partitioning Tool
> and automatic partitioning of the free space, I get a pop-up message
> that says:
>
> =====> The existing partition scheme on this disk
> (MBR) is not bootable on this platform. To
> install FreeBSD, it must be repartitioned.
> This will destroy all data on the disk.
> Are you sure you want to proceed?
>               [Yes]          [No]
> =====>
> If instead of the Guided Partitioning Tool I choose to partition the
> disk manually I get a similar message as a warning and the
> installation process continues without an error, but the installed
> FreeBSD system is not bootable. Installing boot0 manually (boot0cfg
> -Bv /dev/ada0) doesn't fix it. The boot0 boot loader is able to boot
> Windows but it's unable to start the FreeBSD boot process. It only
> prints hash symbols when I press F3 (the FreeBSD slice/MBR partition
> number).
>
> I consider this as a critical bug. But maybe there is some workaround
> that allows me to install the FreeBSD 11.1 as a second OS without
> repartitioning the entire disk?
>
> My hardware is an Intel Core i7 4790 3.6GHz based machine with 16GB
> RAM. The ada0 disk is 238GB SanDisk SD8SBAT256G1122 (SSD).
>
You have to do the partitioning and then install FreeBSD's boot manager 
by hand.? It /does /work; I ran into the same thing with my Lenovo X220 
and was able to manually install it, which works fine to dual-boot 
between Windows and FreeBSD-11.? I had to do it manually because the 
installer detected that the X220 was UEFI capable and insisted on 
GPT-partitioning the disk, which is incompatible with dual-boot and the 
existing MBR-partitioned Windows installation.

You want the partition layout to look like this:

$ gpart show
=>?????? 63? 500118129? ada0? MBR? (238G)
 ???????? 63??? 4208967???? 1? ntfs? (2.0G)
 ??? 4209030? 307481727???? 2? ntfs? (147G)
 ? 311690757????????? 3??????? - free -? (1.5K)
 ? 311690760? 165675008???? 3? freebsd? [active]? (79G)
 ? 477365768???? 808957??????? - free -? (395M)
 ? 478174725?? 21928725???? 4? ntfs? (10G)
 ? 500103450????? 14742??????? - free -? (7.2M)

=>??????? 0? 165675008? ada0s3? BSD? (79G)
 ????????? 0??? 8388608?????? 1? freebsd-ufs? (4.0G)
 ??? 8388608? 136314880?????? 2? freebsd-ufs? (65G)
 ? 144703488?? 20971519?????? 4? freebsd-swap? (10G)
 ? 165675007????????? 1????????? - free -? (512B)

MBR has only four partitions; the "standard" Windows (7+) install uses
/three. /The "boot"/repair area, the main partition and, on most 
machines, a "recovery" partition.? That usually leaves partition 3
free
which is where I stuck FreeBSD.?? Note that you must then set up slices 
on Partition 3 (e.g. root/usr/swap) as usual.


-- 
Karl Denninger
karl at denninger.net <mailto:karl at denninger.net>
/The Market Ticker/
/[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/
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06.10.2017 22:17, Rostislav Krasny wrote:
> I consider this as a critical bug. But maybe there is some workaround
> that allows me to install the FreeBSD 11.1 as a second OS without
> repartitioning the entire disk?
> 
> My hardware is an Intel Core i7 4790 3.6GHz based machine with 16GB
> RAM. The ada0 disk is 238GB SanDisk SD8SBAT256G1122 (SSD).
bsdinstall (current installer) is seriously flawed comparing with sysinstall
(previous one)
when we talk about installing FreeBSD to a slice within MBR.

You still can install FreeBSD by invoking a shell from bsdinstall
and using gpart:

gpart add -t freebsd -a 4096 ada0    # dedicate all unallocated space for ada0s3
gpart create -s BSD -n 20 ada0s3     # create BSD label able to contain upto 20
partitions
gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot0 ada0   # install menu-driven boot manager BootEasy
to MBR
gpart bootcode -b /boot/boot ada0s3  # install FreeBSD-specific UFS boot code to
its slice
gpart set -a active -i 1 ada0	     # make sure MBR has exactly one active
partition
gpart add -t freebsd-swap -s 4G -i 2 # allocate 4G for a swap ada0s3b (choose
size of your like)
gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -s 2G	     # allocate 2G for root partition ada0s3a
newfs -L root /dev/ada0s3a
gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -s 1G	     # allocate 1G for read-only /usr partition
ada0s3d
newfs -L usr /dev/ada0s3d
gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -s 4G	     # allocate 4G for /var ada0s3e
newfs -L var /dev/ada0s3e
gpart add -t freebsd-ufs -s 10G	     # allocate 10G /usr/local: future installed
ports & packages
newfs -L usrl /dev/ada0s3f
gpart add -t freebsd-ufs	     # allocate all other space for /home
newfs -L home /dev/ada0s3g

Then you will have mount new ada0s3a, create mount points for other partitions
there,
create etc/fstab, extract *.txz from distibution media and it will boot just
fine.