Booting multiple EFI partitions

FreeBSD TWC FreeBSD at twc.com
Tue Sep 11 20:41:47 UTC 2018


I have a new HP Slimline Desktop 290-p0014 which features an Intel i7-8700.

I can install two instances of FreeBSD 11.2 Release, here's the boot process documented in eufi man page:

3.	/boot1.efi/  searches partitions of type freebsd-ufs and
		freebsd-zfs for	/loader.efi/.  The search	begins with partitions
		on the device from which/boot1.efi/  was loaded, and continues
		with other available partitions.  If both freebsd-ufs and
		freebsd-zfs partitions exist on	the same device	the
		freebsd-zfs partition is preferred./boot1.efi/  then loads and
		executes/loader.efi/.
	   4.	/loader.efi/  loads and boots the kernel, as described in
		loader(8)  <https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=loader&sektion=8&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+11.2-RELEASE+and+Ports>.

The result is that a second freebsd partition can never be booted.  I have always liked to install a second instance of freebsd to use as a recovery drive, rather than waiting for a slow CD-ROM boot.
When I installed two instances of FreeBSD, bsdinstall added two lines in the BIOS boot menu (I pressed F9).
But both lines are identical:
UEFI OS (TOSHIBA HDWE160)
One I gave the hostname Chameleon and the other was Recovery.  I also labeled each partition that way.

Is anyone working on enhancing boot1.efi to support booting from other partitions?

I want the functionality of boot0 where FreeBSD displayed all the available partitions and allowed me to select any one.

I can do that now on my machine, but I have to use legacy BIOS boot to an MBR, rather than UEFI boot to a GPT partition.




More information about the freebsd-questions mailing list