Dear friends: I decided to go out and buy the latest issue of Linux Format with the FreeBSD 6 CD. I am very glad I did. FreeBSD is tough to install, but after spending several hours I finally succeeded in doing a perfect installation. ONE BIG PROBLEM: When I removed the CD and rebooted, I got into my Windows XP (I have two separate disks, one for Windows, one of FreeBSD). There was no way to get into FreeBSD. Naturally, I went into my BIOS and changed the boot sequence from CD to Hard Drive. That only caused my system to boot into Windows XP. I read the instructions about the FreeBSD Boot Manager. It said clearly that it should allow switching from one OS to another. But I did not see any configuration for that. How, may I ask, do I do this while installing FreeBSD? How do I change this configuration to guarantee that all my work won't go down the toilet and that when I reboot, I will see Lilo or whatever as a boot manager that will allow me to select either FreeBSD or Windows? I am looking forward to solving this and then to actually seeing FreeBSD for the first time. Thank you so much in advance. Benjamin
At 04:43 PM 20/03/2006, Benjamin Sher wrote:>I read the instructions about the FreeBSD Boot Manager. It said clearly >that it should allow switching from one OS to another. But I did not see >any configuration for that. How, may I ask, do I do this while >installing FreeBSD?Google around for "Windows xp dual boot freebsd" and then have a look at http://bsdwiki.com/wiki/How_to_use_the_WinXP_loader_to_boot_FreeBSD Also, you should post questions like this to the freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list, not to freebsd-stable. ---Mike
> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:43:25 -0500 > From: Benjamin Sher <sher07@mindspring.com> > Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org > > Dear friends: > > I decided to go out and buy the latest issue of Linux Format with the > FreeBSD 6 CD. I am very glad I did. FreeBSD is tough to install, but > after spending several hours I finally succeeded in doing a perfect > installation. ONE BIG PROBLEM: When I removed the CD and rebooted, I got > into my Windows XP (I have two separate disks, one for Windows, one of > FreeBSD). There was no way to get into FreeBSD. Naturally, I went into > my BIOS and changed the boot sequence from CD to Hard Drive. That only > caused my system to boot into Windows XP. > > I read the instructions about the FreeBSD Boot Manager. It said clearly > that it should allow switching from one OS to another. But I did not see > any configuration for that. How, may I ask, do I do this while > installing FreeBSD? How do I change this configuration to guarantee that > all my work won't go down the toilet and that when I reboot, I will see > Lilo or whatever as a boot manager that will allow me to select either > FreeBSD or Windows? > > I am looking forward to solving this and then to actually seeing FreeBSD > for the first time.This is really more appropriate to questions, but I'll make some suggestions that might get you going. Just to clarify, this assumes that you have 2 physical disk drives, one containing Windows and one containing FreeBSD and that Windows is installed on the first drive and FreeBSD on the second. When you installed FreeBSD, you installed the FreeBSD boot Manager on the second hard drive, but the bootstrap on the first drive still has the standard MBR. As a result, it simply boots Windows. There are several solutions available. The easiest is to just put the FreeBSD boot manager on the first drive. If you do this, you will get a prompt when you boot that looks like: F1 DOS F5 Other Disk At this point, you can press either F1 for Windows and F5 to boot the next disk. Pressing F5 will give you F1 FreeBSD F5 Other Disk At this point, you can press F1 to boot FreeBSD or F5 to go back to the first disk. The FreeBSD Boot Manager is smart in that it remembers a boot and defaults to that boot on the next bootstrap operation. To write the MBR on the first disk, just boot the CD and select the holographic shell. At that point, enter the command: boot0cfg -B ad0 That should do the trick. There are several other ways to do this, but this is the first one I thought of for your situation. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Dear Kevin: Sounds great! Just what I need. One question before I proceed: what is the holographic shell. Please be specific and provide step-by-step instructions. I am a bit nervous about this kind of brain surgery. Thank you again. Benjamin> > To write the MBR on the first disk, just boot the CD and select the > holographic shell. At that point, enter the command: > boot0cfg -B ad0 > > That should do the trick. There are several other ways to do this, but > this is the first one I thought of for your situation. >
> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 17:44:28 -0500 > From: Benjamin Sher <sher07@mindspring.com> > Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org > > Dear Kevin: > > Sounds great! Just what I need. One question before I proceed: what is > the holographic shell. Please be specific and provide step-by-step > instructions. I am a bit nervous about this kind of brain surgery. > > Thank you again. > > Benjamin > > > > To write the MBR on the first disk, just boot the CD and select the > > holographic shell. At that point, enter the command: > > boot0cfg -B ad0 > > > > That should do the trick. There are several other ways to do this, but > > this is the first one I thought of for your situation. > >Oops! I really meant the live file system. It is available on the FreeBSD installation CD. It gives you a shell on the system. Boot the installation CD Select "Fixit" Select "2 CDROM/DVD" At the prompt, enter the boot0cfg command. Type exit to return to sysinstall Exit sysinstall to reboot the system -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: oberman@es.net Phone: +1 510 486-8634