................Fri 5.Apr'13 at 18:45:25 +0200 Peter J. Philipp................
> On 04/05/13 18:04, Andrew Gould wrote:
> >I am a new to OpenBSD. (I have installed OpenBSD 5.2 once on an old
> >computer with xdm and xfce enabled.) I would like to install OpenBSD on a
> >laptop that already has an active partition setup by Windows 7 and a
> >partition containing Windows 7. I have successfully upgraded the hard
> >drive, so approximately 500GB are available at the end of the drive.
> >
> >1. I have read the installation and dual booting sections of the FAQ. I am
> >unsure about installing OpenBSD without altering the existing MBR. Is it
> >simply a matter of not marking the new partitions as active?
> >
> >2. easybcd forum suggests that easybcd can find OpenBSD if OpenBSD's
> >bootloader is installed on the partition MBR. Does anyone have any advice
> >on whether easybcd should be used? If so, how would I install the
> >bootloader to the partition MBR?
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Andrew Gould
> >
> >
> Hi Andrew,
>
> I installed 5.2 on a netbook by first shrinking the windows 7
> partition inside windows and then installing OpenBSD with the FAQ as
> my guide. If properly read, which I luckily did, it should just work
> as it is written. It's generally a wise idea to make backups first,
> but to be totally honest I don't think I did as my data was
> expendible if it screwed up somewhere. What you may want to have
> handy though is a memstick to transfer the PBR from the OpenBSD
> install to the Windows partition, which you need it to boot OpenBSD
> on hd.
>
> AFAIK you don't touch the MBR at all, I don't remember whether that
> was an option in the installer but if there was I said "no, don't
> install" or similar. I remember however I was very nervous initially
> until I did it and it turned out to work.
I did this recently, it's easy to do. The most important thing is
creating the openbsd.pbr file, using dd(1) as described on the FAQ.
You can copy that to a memstick as Peter said; what I did/have is a
separate partition of FAT32 file system. I mount this from OpenBSD now
using /etc/fstab but at first you can just mount it during the install
process and copy the file to that. Then boot into Windows and follow the
instructions and copy the openbsd.pbr file from the FAT32 partition into
C: drive on Windows. It also has the benefit of being able to share some
files between the two OS's. Every time I upgrade a snapshot I just re-do
the dd if=/dev/rsd0a of=/mnt/mnt/MSDOS/openbsd.pbr bs=512 count=1 --
although I've not needed to copy it over in Windows so far. The upgrades
just go through as normal. But I do it just in case.
When you come out of the OpenBSD installation you may need to put in
your Windows 7 cd and go into the fix section to recreate the MBR, as
you'll be using Windows' boot manager to select what OS you boot into.
--
James Griffin: jmz at kontrol.kode5.net
jmzgriffin at gmail.com
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