Grub and FreeBSD 4.9

[George Hartzell]

db writes:
 > Hi all
 > 
 > I'm trying to get grub working on my FreeBSD 4.9 test-box.
 > [...]

Here's a description of how I did it, from the freebsd-current list in
late Februrary 2003.  It was part of an ongoing thread that you might
find useful.

g.


George Hartzell writes:
 > Andrew Boothman writes:
 >  > [...]
 >  > OK Guys, I think I'm still a little confused here.
 >  > 
 >  > I've just had a few botched installs of GRUB so I think I need a little more
 >  > direction, if you could :)
 >  > 
 >  > I've got GRUB on a floppy and it boots fine. If I type :
 >  > rootnoverify (hd0,0)
 >  > makeactive
 >  > chainloader +1
 >  > boot
 >  > 
 >  > I get Win2k booted no problem!
 >  > 
 >  > So, following the instructions in the Grub Manual, I typed
 >  > root(fd0)
 >  > setup(hd0)
 >  > 
 >  > I remove the floppy from the drive and reboot
 >  > 
 >  > On boot I get "Loading GRUB... Please Wait..." but after that I get "GRUB
 >  > Error 17" which according to the manual means that GRUB doesn't know how to
 >  > load the selected partition. Even though when I boot from the floppy it
 >  > starts no problem and I can type commands to get it to boot Win2k....
 > 
 > That told it to install GRUB into the beginning of (hd0) [e.g. the
 > Master Boot record], but configured it to use (fd0) as the root of the
 > place to find stuff.  Since the floppy wasn't in when you booted, it
 > didn't do anything useful.
 > 
 > There are some grub things that need to be on the disk that you give
 > the "root" designation too, e.g. "stage1", etc...
 > 
 > I don't know how/where to install those files into an NTFS partition,
 > I assume that GRUB can read NTFS filesystems, and you could tuck them
 > there, but I don't know for sure.
 > 
 > Here's what I'd do.
 > 
 > Get yourself booted into freebsd any way that you can.
 > 
 > PRINT OUT THE INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR BIOS PARTITION TABLE AND YOUR
 > FREEBSD DISKLABEL, AND SAVE IT.  "fdisk -s" and "disklabel -r
 > diskname" are your friends!!!!
 > 
 > Build grub from the ports tree and install it.  It installs all of the
 > juicy bits into some directory in
 > /usr/local/share/grub/i386-freebsd/..., which doesn't seem to be a
 > place where grub can find it.  I make a directory called /boot/grub
 > and copy all of them there.
 > 
 > Start grub (e.g. boot from your grub floppy).  Under the 5.0 systems,
 > GEOM is picky about letting you doink with disks that you have
 > mounted, so you either need the "let me shoot myself in the foot
 > sysctl patch
 > (ftp://ftp.jurai.net/users/winter/patches/geom-foot.patch) or boot
 > from something else (e.g. floppy, live cdrom, ...)
 > 
 > Make sure that grub can see it's various interesting bits:
 > 
 > grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
 > 
 > and it should say:
 > 
 >  (hd0,1,a)
 > 
 > assuming that you have Something Else (e.g. windows) in the first
 > primary BIOS partition/slice, a set of FreeBSD slices in the second
 > primary BIOS partition/slice, and the /boot/grub stuff is in the first
 > ("a") BSD_DISKLABEL/slice.
 > 
 > If you have the grub bits living in a Linux filesystem in the third
 > primary BIOS partition, it'd say (hd0,2).  If you had them in a Linux
 > filesystem living in the first extended partition, it'd say (hd0,4),
 > etc....
 > 
 > That's the drive that you want to declare as your root, which just
 > configures the low level grub code that "setup" installs so that it
 > knows where to look for it's various useful bits.
 > 
 > e.g. 
 > 
 > grub> root (hd0,1,a)
 > 
 > Then you need to install grub onto somewhere where the computer will
 > trip over it and boot it.
 > 
 > One possibility is to install it into the master boot record, which
 > would be:
 > 
 > grub> setup (hd0)
 > 
 > Here you boot process would be 
 > 
 >   power on->bios->load the MBR which is really GRUB->grub loads its stage1,...
 > 
 > Or you could leave a "normal" MBR at the beginning of the disk and
 > install GRUB into the beginning of the FreeBSD BIOS partition
 > (assuming that FreeBSD is in the second primary parition):
 > 
 > grub> setup (hd0,1)
 > 
 > If that's all that you do, thing's won't quite boot.  You'll need to
 > also mark that partition active, so that the stock MBR code will jump
 > to it.  I always do that by getting to this point, booting by hook or
 > by crook (e.g. a grub boot floppy, a bootable freebsd CD, a bootable
 > linux CD) and using some utility (e.g. partition magic from windows,
 > fdisk from windows, fdisk from freebsd, fdisk or cfdisk from linux) to
 > mark the partition active.  I prefer partition magic because I believe
 > that it has the most robust partition table integrity checks, but
 > whatever you trust....
 > 
 > Now, your boot process will look like:
 > 
 >   power on->bios->"real" MBR which jumps to the active parition -> (next line)
 >   
 >   ... -> GRUB at the beginning of active partition -> GRUB stage1,...
 > 
 > When grub get's up and running, it'll look for a file called menu.lst
 > (unless you override the name when you "setup") which contains the
 > info for the boot menu.  Here's mine (notice that there are a bunch of
 > mutually exclusive things that I've tucked into the 3rd BIOS partition
 > at various times and I just keep the info around for reference.  As
 > long as I don't actually choose any of the "wrong" selections, there's
 > no trouble.
 > 
 > default=0
 > timeout=10
 > title FreeBSD 4.7
 >         root (hd0,1,a)
 >         kernel /boot/loader
 > title FreeBSD 5.0
 >         root (hd0,2,a)
 >         kernel /boot/loader
 > title Redhat Linux 8.0
 >         root (hd0,2)
 >         kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda3
 >         initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-14.img
 > title Redhat Linux 8.0 (hires)
 >         root (hd0,2)
 >         kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=/dev/hda3 vga=791
 >         initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.18-14.img
 > title Windows 2000
 >         rootnoverify (hd0,0)
 >         chainloader +1
 > 
 >  > I then used "fdisk /mbr" on a Windows 98 boot disk to remove GRUB and get me
 >  > back to a normal Win2k boot. But that doesn't help me get FreeBSD dual
 >  > booting.....
 >  > 
 >  > Can you offer any insight into how to make this work? I remember using GRUB
 >  > before and being very happy with it, but it was installed for me by
 >  > RedHat....
 > 
 > *REMEMBER* 
 > 
 >  run an "fdisk -s" and print out the output 
 >  run and "disklabel -r ad0" (or whatever device) and print out the info.
 > 
 > BEFORE you start playing around!!!!
 > 
 > g.
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > 
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