Access problems

[John Murphy]

>Hello All,
>I have a 20 Gig hard drive ( Maxtor) where there are
>two partitions ( first 8 gigs has Win 98 and the rest
>has Freebsd 4.4). 
>Initially when the freebsd was installed, it was done
>in a machine which I no longer have.
>I need to get access to the files in my freebsd
>partition. How can I do it?

I don't know of any MS-Windows program which can read
FreeBSD file systems, but all is not lost.

>Its a dual boot and I can get access to the Win 98
>partition, by just plugging it into any machine..

If the FreeBSD kernel wasn't configured for specific hardware
then you will find that you can boot the OS and it will run.
Even if its default kernel crashes there may be a GENERIC
kernel lying around which you can use by pressing space during
the ten second countdown stage.  Then type the following:

unload
boot /kernel.GENERIC

also (if that doesn't work) try:

unload
boot /kernel.old

I'm presuming you still know the root (administrator) password.
If you don't then follow the instructions at:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/admin.html#FORGOT-ROOT-PW

Log in as root and make a directory such as /windows with:
mkdir /windows

Mount your windows partition (I'm presuming IDE drive) with:
mount_msdos /dev/ad0s1 /windows

You should at this stage be able to list the contents of the
windows partition with:
ls /windows

All you need to do now is find the files you need from the
FreeBSD partition and copy them to somewhere on the windows partition.

Good luck
John.