Boot problems afther reinstall windows

[Alex de Kruijff]

> > On Tue, Mar 15, 2005 at 02:12:46AM +0000, Jason Henson wrote:
> > > What is in your windows boot.ini file?
> > > 
> > > 
> > > On 03/14/05 11:13:49, Alex de Kruijff wrote:
> > > >Hi,
> > > >
> > > >I've recently reinstalled windows. Windows removes the MBR as you
> > > >know.
> > > >So ather I installed it I set partion 1 (FreeBSD) active and  
> > > >rebooted.
> > > >Then I followed the handbook and did fdisk -B -b /boot/boot0 ad0. Now
> > > >I
> > > >get the orginal screen afther booting. Only it beeps when I press F2
> > > >(Windows). I can mount the second partion on FreeBSD, but cant boot.
> > > >Any
> > > >ideas to what I'm missing here?
> > > >

On Tue, Mar 15, 2005 at 08:53:25AM -0500, Jerry McAllister wrote:
> > 
> > Windows was able to boot afhter I installed it. I never touched
> > boot.ini. The content would have been:
> > 
> > [boot loader]
> > timeout=30
> > default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
> > [operating systems]
> > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
> > 
> > I now use a different solution. Instead of the freebsd bootloader
> > (boot0). I now use the windows bootloader. I copied boot1 to
> > c:\freebsd.bin. Then modified windows boot.ini as follow:
> > 
> > [boot loader]
> > timeout=10
> > default=c:\freebsd.bin
> > [operating systems]
> > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
> > Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
> > c:\freebsd.bin="FreeBSD 5"
> > 
> > This works for me. I still wonder why the stuff below didn't work. In
> > the past I would do this with /stand/sysinstall. But I don't dare to do
> > this with FreeBSD 5 because of drive geometric warnings.
> > 
> 
> Remember there are two boot blocks, so to speak.
> There is the MBR that lets you choose which slice to boot.  There is 
> only one of those per disk and it lives in "sector 0" of the disk.
> The MBR generally has a standard calling sequence (that the Bios calls)
> and sets things up to a fairly standard condition and looks for
> standard appearing boot sectors in slices and makes a standard
> call to the selected slice's boot sector.   Almost any MBR that
> knows how to recognize a standard boot sector in a slice and lets
> you choose between them if there are more than one can be used
> interchangeably.
> 
> Then there is the boot block with the actual boot loader that starts 
> pulling the OS from the bootable partition.   On a multi boot disk 
> there are several - one per each bootable slice and they live in the 
> boot sector of each slice.    Those are specific to the OS they are 
> booting.  Though their calling sequence is standard, what they have 
> to do to load and start their own OS is not.

Is it posible to boot one OS if you only have the MBR?

> I am guessing that you managed to overwrite or damage the MS slice'
> boot sector while you were doing things, or didn't get it written
> to the slice properly when you reloaded or something like that.
> Even though you put the MBR back with FreeBSD's fdisk, did you
> also make sure that the MS slice had its own boot loader?   Anyway
> you did when you put the MS boot loader back.   So it works now.

The previous time I first installed windows and then FreeBSD 5. The
difference this time is that I didn't use /stand/sysinstall. This
because I would get into serious troubel. (I never found out how to
force the right geometry) So I was thinking maybe sysinstall does
something (like copy the MBR to the second boot location) that I didn't
do manualy.

I used the windows method for when something goes wrong (i.e. reboot)
and just reinstalled Windows. A added bonus is that I now have one OS as
default instead the last used. I alway was annoyed about loading the
previous used. I only want to use Windows if I have to (mostly for
word - there language functionality is superb).


Tanks for you time. Appricate it.

-- 
Alex

Please copy the original recipients, otherwise I may not read your reply.
WWW: http://www.kruijff.org/alex/FreeBSD/