Boot and MBR.

[Jud]

On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 17:18:01 -0900, Mark Weisman <mark at mystic1.net> wrote:

> Just out of curiosity what is the order in creating a dual boot system?
> Which operating system do you put on first? I see that having WinXP
> setup in partitions is not a good idea, yet I'm not aware of how to load
> the system in just a slice? I would appreciate any and all help in
> trying to get this thing online. I need my workstation back as soon as
> possible. Thanks.
[snip]
>> I've got my primary drive divided in two partitions, one partition had
>
>> WindowsXP and the other has FreeBSD 5.1-Release on it. I had WindowsXP
>
>> installed and working until I put FreeBSD on the second partition and
>> had it take control of the MBR. I know that the other partition is
>> still bootable if I can get a pointer to it, currently the boot menu
>> shows it
>> as:
>>   F!: ??
>>   F2: FreeBSD
>> How can I get that first menu choice to look at the installation on
> the
>> first partition as bootable? Making the machine a dual boot between
> the
>> two system?

First off, don't worry about slice vs partition - Jerry was just telling  
you those are the names used by FreeBSD and Windows, respectively, for the  
same thing.

Second, how to get your dual boot going -

1. I think if you do what you've already done in FreeBSD (set the Windows  
slice/partition bootable) and then type "w" to write the change, that  
should work.

If it doesn't, two other alternatives -

2. If you have a Win9x emergency boot/system floppy hanging around, use  
fdisk to set the Windows partition/slice active, then reboot; or

3. Install GAG, a free, easy and automagical boot loader.  <URL:  
http://gag.sourceforge.net/>.

Hope this helps,

Jud