FreeBSD install corrupts neighboring partitions

[Jud]

On Tue, 9 Sep 2003 01:06:52 +0200, Raphaël Marmier 
<raphael at computer-rental.ch> wrote:

>
> Le Lundi, 8 sep 2003, à 22:01 Europe/Zurich, Jud a écrit :
>
> --snip--
>>  Once you've installed FreeBSD, if you
>> can't boot back into Windows, use the Windows tools to restore the
>> familiar Win MBR: for 9x, boot from the emergency floppy and run fdisk
>> /mbr; for more recent versions, boot from CD into console repair mode 
>> and
>> run fixboot and fixmbr.
>
> In my case, I think I could mount the windows partition only from linux. 
> I couldn't read it with a dos disk (same w98 se). So I thought that it 
> was some kind of incompatibility between the way FreeBSD/Linux and 
> Windows recognized the drive's geometry. Installing freeBSD would change 
> something in subtil way in the partition table that would confuse 
> windows' boot loader. I did fdisk /mbr, sys c:, etc... to no avail.
> Finally, installing windows in second solved the issue. I never really 
> understood what happened though.
>
> I have to mention the windows partition was not the first primary 
> partition (well, ok, slice in BSDspeak).
>
> Raphaël

In order to boot, a Windows 98SE partition ordinarily must "think it is" 
the first primary partition.  This and the fact that you also had Linux 
installed (or was this a Linux CD?) indicates to me there was other 
software involved in your situation beyond simply Windows and FreeBSD.

Jud