Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

I didnt see a copy of this mail returned to me, so am sure if it has
reached the list. Since I just subscribed, its possible something is
wrong -- and so am resending it.

Sorry for the inconv. :)) 

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 10:47:41 +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan
<rakhesh.s at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Are there any issues in booting FreeBSD using NTLDR? My machine has
> Windows XP, Fedora Core 3, and FreeBSD-5.3, and while I know I can use
> GRUB to boot FreeBSD, I want to try booting it using NTLDR. Just for
> kicks -- its something I haven't tried so far. :))
> 
> My ad0 disk has WinXP (and NTLDR), while ad1 has FreeBSD. I tried the
> usual suggestions of extracting the first 512 bytes of "/dev/ad1"
> (using "dd") into a file and telling NTLDR to use that file for
> booting. But it doesn't work. Then I tried extracting 512 bytes from
> other locations like "/dev/ad1s1" and "/dev/ad1s1a" and "/dev/ad1s1c",
> but to no avail. Finally I even tried copying over copying
> "/boot/boot1" (and even "/boot/boot2" and "/boot/loader" coz I was at
> my wits end) to a file, and telling NTLDR to use that file for booting
> -- but again nada! Most of the times I'd get a "Boot Error" message,
> while at other times nothing happens.
> 
> Searching around on Google, I found a post to freebsd-stable that asks
> the same question
> (http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd.org/msg64950.html).
> The reply given there was to use this program called BOOTPART (can be
> run from Windows, it extracts the bootsector of any partition you
> specify, which can then be used to boot into that partition using
> NTLDR). Using that program does allow me extract the bootsectors of
> the FreeBSD partition, and use that from NTLDR to boot into it -- but
> I am still stumped -- how does this program manage to extract the
> bootsectors, while "dd" is not? I've used the "dd" method to
> successfully boot into Fedora Core 3 using NTLDR, so I know it
> generally does the job.
> 
> Any suggestions folks? Is there some incompatibility thing with NTLDR,
> or am I going wrong somewhere?
> 
> Thanks,
> Rakhesh
> 


-- 
				Rakhesh
				rax at rakhesh.com