FreeBSD Boot Manager

[Jerry McAllister]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2009 at 09:37:28PM -0500, Grant Peel wrote:

> So then,
> 
> IF we are able to restore the Windows MBR, and boot into windows, should we 
> not be able to boot the machine with a bootable FreeBSD disk, then, use 
> Sysinstall to restore the FreeBSD boot manager?

Maybe, but better to boot up the fixit and use fdisk to restore it.

////jerry


> 
> -Grant
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Steve Bertrand" <steve at ibctech.ca>
> To: "Kurt Buff" <kurt.buff at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Grant Peel" <gpeel at thenetnow.com>; <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2009 8:33 PM
> Subject: Re: FreeBSD Boot Manager
> 
> 
> >Kurt Buff wrote:
> >>On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 5:17 PM, Grant Peel <gpeel at thenetnow.com> wrote:
> >
> >>>On that drive, there was about 100 GB of free space, so I decided to try 
> >>>putting FreeBSD 6.4 on it.
> >>>
> >>>During the install, I opted to use the Free BSD boot manage. The install 
> >>>went flawlessly.
> >
> >>>Any idea what I might need to do to make windows work again?
> >>>
> >>>It may be worth mentioning, I had Norton GoBack running on the disk 
> >>>before I installed FreeBSD, although I am not aware if it does anything 
> >>>to the booting system.
> >
> >>www.bootdisk.com
> >>
> >>Find a bootable floppy image there that includes a DOS fdisk, and
> >>write it out to a floppy disk.
> >>
> >>Boot your machine with that floppy, and at the DOS prompt, type 'fdisk
> >>/mbr' - it will write a standard boot sector, and Windows should boot
> >>again.
> >>
> >>Of course, this will not allow you to boot to your new FreeBSD
> >>installation, but with other folks' help, you can probably overcome
> >>that - probably with GRUB, or another boot manager.
> >
> >Technically (theoretically) speaking, using a Win32 boot disk to fdisk
> >/mbr, he should be able to re-initialize the FBSD boot loader by going
> >through the steps he did initially.
> >
> >AFAIR, Symantec GoBack, along with many other 'in-disk' restoration
> >programs, overwrite the boot sector with its own code.
> >
> >If the OP can boot back into Windows with the fdisk /mbr, he has likely
> >done both:
> >
> >- broke his GoBack program's ability to recover, and;
> >- made it possible to restore the FBSD boot manager
> >
> >If Windows boots after following Kurt's recommendation of restoring the
> >Windows MBR, back up your Windows system, then try FreeBSD again.
> >
> >You sound courageous, give 'er!
> >
> >
> >Steve
> >
> 
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