winxp freebsd dual boot with freebsd on second HD

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sat, Sep 18, 2004 at 05:20:35PM -0700, Abe Olson wrote:
 
> The instructions say:
> "Other operating systems, in particular Windows® 95, have been known to 
> overwrite an existing MBR with their own. If this happens to you, or you 
> want to replace your existing MBR with the FreeBSD MBR then use the 
> following command:
> 
> # fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 device
> 
> Where device is the device that you boot from . . ."

You have to do that to all bootable drives in your machine -- so
assuming your Windows disk is ad0 and your FreeBSD disk is ad2, you'ld
run:

    # fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 ad0
    # fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 ad2

In either case, you shouldn't need to rewrite the partition table.

See also boot0cfg(8) for a tool that lets you configure exactly how
the boot blocks work.  Indeed, you can use boot0cfg(8) instead of
fdisk(8) to achieve your ends:

    # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/boot0 ad0
    # boot0cfg -B -b /boot/boot0 ad2

boot0cfg only ever affects the boot blocks; unlike fdisk it doesn't do
anything with partition tables, other than allow you to choose which
slices to boot from.

Note that the boot0 boot block is very minimal -- it fits into a
single 512 byte sector -- and that many people prefer 3rd party boot
managers like GAG: http://gag.sourceforge.net/ which, while quite a
bit bigger, have a much friendlier user interface.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20040919/98ff9265/attachment.bin