how to set up a dual boot system

[Marty Landman]

Does this mean I should start over, installing fbsd first and setting aside 
a slice on the first disk (second slice say) for windows?

If I do that, will windows be able to format that second slice, i.e. will 
it see it as a partition?

Marty

At 10:20 AM 2/14/2005, Jerry McAllister wrote:
> >
> > I must've goofed somehow. Left windows 98 on the primary master ide and
> > installed fbsd 5.2 on the other two ide's; installation seemed to go well,
> > and I installed the bootmgr on the first of the two ide's that fbsd is on.
> > However when I reboot from the hard drive go right into windows.
> >
> > Where did I go wrong, and how do I fix it?
>
>The MBR has to be installed on the first disk found in the boot list
>which will most likely be the one with Winxxx on it - your description
>sounds like that and anyway MS doesn't like to be installed anywhere
>else.   The MBR should also be on the other two disks, but definitely
>must be on that first one.  Then you have to install a boot sector
>on those two disks.    The MS MBR doesn't know how to boot anything
>but an MS system.
>
>Basically, when the system boots, it starts with the BIOS.  The BIOS
>looks at its list of boot devices according to how it is configured
>and begins to check them in order.   It tries to boot from the first
>device in its list that has an MBR.   That MBR is what then may look
>at the other disks for a bootable slice.   The MS MBR doesn't know how
>to recognize any other type of system or boot anything but MS stuff.
>So, you have to make sure that the first device that the BIOS finds
>with an MBR has a FreeBSD (or other intelligent) MBR that knows how
>to boot anything.
>
>The FreeBSD MBR will boot any of the systems with a standard boot sequence,
>but it is a little limited in its ability to label them.  It has labels for
>a few, such as FreeBSD, MS-DOS, some LINUXen.   But it doesn't have names
>for many others such as MS with an NTFS slice.   It will boot any of these
>including the ones it doesn't have names for, but it just puts up ??? for
>the name in the boot menu of ones it doesn't have names for.   That is not
>really a problem, though it can be confusing on a machine if you have
>one FreeBSD slice and three bootable slices with system that say ??? for
>the name.   You have to remember which ??? is which...
>
>For that reasonable reason plus other prejudices many people install
>a third part MBR/loader such as Grub.   But, it isn't essential to
>get things to work.
>
>The second thing you did wrong is installing F-5.2.   If you want 5.xxx
>then install 5.3 (or at least 5.2.1).  FreeBSD 5.2 was almost immediately
>supplanted because of problems - probably not related to your current
>situation, but you don't want it anyway.
>
>////jerry
>
> >
> > Marty
> >
> >
> > Marty Landman, Face 2 Interface Inc. 845-679-9387
> > Search & Sort Easily: http://face2interface.com/Products/FormATable.shtml
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> >
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Marty Landman, Face 2 Interface Inc. 845-679-9387
Search & Sort Easily: http://face2interface.com/Products/FormATable.shtml
Web Installed Formmail: http://face2interface.com/formINSTal