Windows XP

[Jud]

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 15:44:50 -0600, Henrik Hudson <lists at rhavenn.net>  
wrote:

> On Tuesday 11 November 2003 15:34,
> "Eric Greene" <EricDGreene at hotmail.com> sent a missive stating:
>
>> Hello.  I would like to learn to use FreeBSD.  I would also like to have
>> the ability to choose between either Win XP Pro and FreeBSD upon  
>> starting
>> up my system.  I do have 2 40GB hard drives, plus Partition Magic if I
>> need.  My plan at the moment is to simply have Win XP Pro on one hdd,  
>> and
>> FBSD on the other.
>>
>> Ok what I would like to know is this:  should I install FreeBSD first?   
>> Or
>> Win XP first?  I am thinking I better not install FreeBSD first because  
>> I
>> doubt that WinXP's setup would recognize FreeBSD as a 2nd. O.S. on my
>> system when installing (thereby not providing the ability to choose an  
>> O.S.
>> on startup).
>>
>> Any suggestions?  My hardware should all be compatible to use FreeBSD.
>
> Yeah, install XP first and then stick BSD on there. The boot manager  
> from BSD,
> although not very elegant, will let you choose XP or BSD on startup. You  
> can
> setup XP's to boot another OS as well, but it's more difficult.
>
> One OS per drive should work fine as well. Have fun.

One OS per drive is fine.  You can boot both OSs with FreeBSD's boot  
loader (if you do this, install the FreeBSD bootloader on *both* drives);  
you can boot both with XP's boot loader (it's one of the FAQs at FreeBSD's  
web site, though admittedly the language is not entirely clear to me  
regarding how to use XP's bootloader where FBSD and XP are on different  
drives); you can use Grub from the FreeBSD ports collection, a bit more  
involved but provides good learning experience about bootloaders; or you  
can go the easy, automagic route with the free GAG bootloader <URL:  
http://gag.sourceforge.net/>.

Jud