Dual booting FreeBSD and Windows XP - PROBLEM SOLVED

[James A. Coulter]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jud" <judmarc at earthlink.net>
To: "John DeStefano" <deesto at yahoo.com>; "James A. Coulter"
<jacoulter at earthlink.net>; <raster at rastersoft.com>
Cc: "freebsd-questions" <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 8:01 AM
Subject: Re: Dual booting FreeBSD and Windows XP - PROBLEM


> On Fri, 1 Aug 2003 07:09:30 -0700 (PDT), "John DeStefano"
> <deesto at yahoo.com> said:
> > "James A. Coulter" <jacoulter at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "John DeStefano"
> > To:
> > Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2003 11:17 AM
> > Subject: Re: Dual booting FreeBSD and Windows XP
> [snip]
> > GAG worked great on my Dell Inspirion 2650 FreeBSD - XP/setup, but when
I
> > installed it on an old Gateway with Win98 - FreeBSD, it did something
> > funky.
> >
> > I get the GAG boot screen and regardless of whether I choose Win98 or
> > FreeBSD the system states it is starting Windows 98 and then, after
> > attempting to access the floppy drive, asks "Type the name of the
Command
> > Interpreter (e.g., C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)" and finishes with the A>
> > prompt.
> >
> > Entering C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM is not recoginized by the system (it
> > repeats
> > the request for the command interpreter) and inserting a floppy with
> > COMMAND.COM results in the system freezing.
> >
> > I tried booting from floppy, worked fine, but system will not recoginize
> > the
> > c: drive.
> >
> > Uninstalling GAG only removes the GAG start-up screen, system still asks
> > for
> > the command interpreter.
> >
> > Read the GAG instructions and FAQ - no luck.
> >
> > Anyone had a problem like this? Any suggestions on how to restore my
hard
> > drive without losing any data?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Jim
> >
> >
> > I'm no guru, but this could be as simple as re-installing GAG, removing
> > all file systems from the menu, and starting from scratch to re-add your
> > OS selections (which will take all of a minute's time).  This worked for
> > me once when I had a problem booting; something had changed on the disk
> > and GAG just needed to adjust to the change.  Give it a try.
> >
> > Failing that... I don't know whether 98 has a 'repair install' option
> > like XP does, but if so, that might be a solution.  Also might work to
> > let BSD write its boot menu to the MBR.  Maybe someone else can chime in
> > with more info.
> >
> > ~John
>
> When you get to the A: prompt, type fdisk /mbr.  If it gives you an
> error, start up the next time with a Windows restore floppy and try it
> again.  That will restore your Win98 bootloader.  Then you can try
> reinstalling GAG.  If it doesn't work, you can try FreeBSD's bootloader,
> Grub (/usr/ports/sysutils/grub), or any of several other options.
>
> Since this isn't a GAG helpline  ;-), future correspondence should
> probably be sent off-list.
>
> Jud

The Windows restore floppy worked.  Problem was caused by the hard drive
restore program (GoBack).  Once I disabled it and restored the mbr
everything worked fine.

Thanks for your help and sorry about going off-topic.  I got the GAG idea
from the -questions list and figured it might be the place to find someone
who had had the problem before.

Jim