Problems setting up dual-boot

[Adam]

On Fri, 2003-04-25 at 22:46, Jud wrote:
> There's an FAQ about this on the FreeBSD web site, but I'm not exactly sure 
> of how to follow the instructions where Windows and FreeBSD are on 
> different disks. 

Yeah, this is the primary spot where I was getting lost. All the
instructions seem to assume that they are installed on the same disk.


>  It would have told you (small comfort) that the 
> boot1=boot.bsd method is only for Win and FBSD on the same disk.

Well, that is a comfort, because at least I know it wasn't my fault that
it wasn't working (other than me applying an incorrect solution).


> BTW, what do you mean by 1024mb swap partition "before" root?  Is swap or / 
> on the "a" partition of your FreeBSD slice?  FreeBSD expects to see / in 
> the "a" partition, so change that if it's currently otherwise.

Well, I have /dev/ad3s1b set as the swap, then /dev/ad3s2a mounted as /.
From some of the reports I've been reading, / should have been mounted
on the first slice. Am I wrong?


> - If you don't care about your Windows partition being called '???', 
> install the FreeBSD bootloader on both hard drives and you're ready to go.

I actually tried this, in 2 ways.
First, I tried using '/stand/sysinstall' to add the boot manager to hd0
(Win2k disk). This didn't have any effect at all. 

Second, I used the following command (IIRC): boot0cfg -B ad0
This did add a boot menu when starting on hd0, but the second option was
just 'drive 1' and selecting that option just caused the machine to
reboot. The ??? option loads Win2k properly (well, as properly as
Windows could ever load, but that's a whole other story).


> - Install FreeBSD, reboot into it, then install grub from 
> /usr/ports/sysutils/grub.  (First, read the online grub documentation 
> *thoroughly*.)

This is going to be my next attempt. Hopefully grub will be able to set
up the dual boot properly.


> - If you have some spare room (could be as little as 105mb) on your Win 
> drive, use BootItNG, a shareware (30-day trial) utility with a nice easy 
> graphical interface, to shrink your Win partition(s) by enough to put your 
> / partition on the Win drive, leaving the rest of your FreeBSD partitions 
> on the other drive.  (I like to make root about 256mb, though that's 
> strictly seat-of-the-pants - don't know if a / of more than 100mb serves 
> any purpose.)  Then just do the boot1=boot.bsd thing, and since your Win 
> and FreeBSD boot partitions are both on the same drive, it'll work.

I do have room on the drive, but I'm a little leery of apps like this
one. I don't trust anything related to Windows to work properly. Have
you actually used this tool in practice? Does it work without problems?


> - If you have room on your FreeBSD drive, install Windows in 1gb or 
> slightly more.  Then do boot1=boot.bsd to boot FreeBSD.  You will have to 
> read up on the language used in the Win boot.ini file so you can modify it 
> to boot your main Win installation on the other drive.

Don't have enough room on the FreeBSD drive to attempt this option.


> HTH,

It certainly does. Thanks!



-- 
Adam <blueeskimo at gmx.net>
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