Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

Hi,

Are there any issues in booting FreeBSD using NTLDR? My machine has
Windows XP, Fedora Core 3, and FreeBSD-5.3, and while I know I can use
GRUB to boot FreeBSD, I want to try booting it using NTLDR. Just for
kicks -- its something I haven't tried so far. :))

My ad0 disk has WinXP (and NTLDR), while ad1 has FreeBSD. I tried the
usual suggestions of extracting the first 512 bytes of "/dev/ad1"
(using "dd") into a file and telling NTLDR to use that file for
booting. But it doesn't work. Then I tried extracting 512 bytes from
other locations like "/dev/ad1s1" and "/dev/ad1s1a" and "/dev/ad1s1c",
but to no avail. Finally I even tried copying over copying
"/boot/boot1" (and even "/boot/boot2" and "/boot/loader" coz I was at
my wits end) to a file, and telling NTLDR to use that file for booting
-- but again nada! Most of the times I'd get a "Boot Error" message,
while at other times nothing happens.

Searching around on Google, I found a post to freebsd-stable that asks
the same question
(http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd.org/msg64950.html).
The reply given there was to use this program called BOOTPART (can be
run from Windows, it extracts the bootsector of any partition you
specify, which can then be used to boot into that partition using
NTLDR). Using that program does allow me extract the bootsectors of
the FreeBSD partition, and use that from NTLDR to boot into it -- but
I am still stumped -- how does this program manage to extract the
bootsectors, while "dd" is not? I've used the "dd" method to
successfully boot into Fedora Core 3 using NTLDR, so I know it
generally does the job.

Any suggestions folks? Is there some incompatibility thing with NTLDR,
or am I going wrong somewhere?

Thanks,
Rakhesh
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

I didnt see a copy of this mail returned to me, so am sure if it has
reached the list. Since I just subscribed, its possible something is
wrong -- and so am resending it.

Sorry for the inconv. :)) 

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 10:47:41 +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Are there any issues in booting FreeBSD using NTLDR? My machine has
> Windows XP, Fedora Core 3, and FreeBSD-5.3, and while I know I can use
> GRUB to boot FreeBSD, I want to try booting it using NTLDR. Just for
> kicks -- its something I haven't tried so far. :))
> 
> My ad0 disk has WinXP (and NTLDR), while ad1 has FreeBSD. I tried the
> usual suggestions of extracting the first 512 bytes of "/dev/ad1"
> (using "dd") into a file and telling NTLDR to use that file for
> booting. But it doesn't work. Then I tried extracting 512 bytes from
> other locations like "/dev/ad1s1" and "/dev/ad1s1a" and "/dev/ad1s1c",
> but to no avail. Finally I even tried copying over copying
> "/boot/boot1" (and even "/boot/boot2" and "/boot/loader" coz I was at
> my wits end) to a file, and telling NTLDR to use that file for booting
> -- but again nada! Most of the times I'd get a "Boot Error" message,
> while at other times nothing happens.
> 
> Searching around on Google, I found a post to freebsd-stable that asks
> the same question
> (http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd.org/msg64950.html).
> The reply given there was to use this program called BOOTPART (can be
> run from Windows, it extracts the bootsector of any partition you
> specify, which can then be used to boot into that partition using
> NTLDR). Using that program does allow me extract the bootsectors of
> the FreeBSD partition, and use that from NTLDR to boot into it -- but
> I am still stumped -- how does this program manage to extract the
> bootsectors, while "dd" is not? I've used the "dd" method to
> successfully boot into Fedora Core 3 using NTLDR, so I know it
> generally does the job.
> 
> Any suggestions folks? Is there some incompatibility thing with NTLDR,
> or am I going wrong somewhere?
> 
> Thanks,
> Rakhesh
> 


-- 
Rakhesh
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Joe Kraft]

Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
I didnt see a copy of this mail returned to me, so am sure if it has
reached the list. Since I just subscribed, its possible something is
wrong -- and so am resending it.
Sorry for the inconv. :)) 

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 10:47:41 +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi,
Are there any issues in booting FreeBSD using NTLDR? My machine has
Windows XP, Fedora Core 3, and FreeBSD-5.3, and while I know I can use
GRUB to boot FreeBSD, I want to try booting it using NTLDR. Just for
kicks -- its something I haven't tried so far. :))
My ad0 disk has WinXP (and NTLDR), while ad1 has FreeBSD. I tried the
usual suggestions of extracting the first 512 bytes of "/dev/ad1"
(using "dd") into a file and telling NTLDR to use that file for
booting. But it doesn't work. Then I tried extracting 512 bytes from
other locations like "/dev/ad1s1" and "/dev/ad1s1a" and "/dev/ad1s1c",
but to no avail. Finally I even tried copying over copying
"/boot/boot1" (and even "/boot/boot2" and "/boot/loader" coz I was at
my wits end) to a file, and telling NTLDR to use that file for booting
-- but again nada! Most of the times I'd get a "Boot Error" message,
while at other times nothing happens.
Searching around on Google, I found a post to freebsd-stable that asks
the same question
(http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd.org/msg64950.html).
The reply given there was to use this program called BOOTPART (can be
run from Windows, it extracts the bootsector of any partition you
specify, which can then be used to boot into that partition using
NTLDR). Using that program does allow me extract the bootsectors of
the FreeBSD partition, and use that from NTLDR to boot into it -- but
I am still stumped -- how does this program manage to extract the
bootsectors, while "dd" is not? I've used the "dd" method to
successfully boot into Fedora Core 3 using NTLDR, so I know it
generally does the job.
Any suggestions folks? Is there some incompatibility thing with NTLDR,
or am I going wrong somewhere?
Thanks,
Rakhesh


I'm doing it with Win2k, I haven't tried it yet with XP though.  And 
I'll preface this, with I'm doing this from memory because I can't find 
the web page they originally came from.

I had Win2k set up already with an empty partition for FBSD.  A fresh 
backup of the windows part, and the magic "recovery disk" may ease 
concerns of trashing what you have, but I like to live dangerously so I 
didn't have them.

Boot the FBSD install CD and install, when you're setting up the 
partition I've tried to get the installer to leave the boot loader 
alone, but NTLDR gets clobbered every time.

When you've got FBSD running, save a copy of /boot/boot0 somewhere you 
will be able to get to it from Windows.

Now you've bot FBSD but not windows, now go back to your Win2k install 
CD and "repair" your current installation, all you should have do do is 
the 'inspect boot files" part.

Once windows restarts, as "administrator" you need to edit boot.ini to 
add an entry for FBSD.  Mine looks like (the last line wrapped, but 
should be a single line):

[EMAIL PROTECTED] mnt]# cat boot.ini
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=C:\freebsd.boot
[operating systems]
C:\freebsd.boot="FreeBSD"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 
Professional" /fastdetect

Then copy the boot0 file to C: drive (I called it freebsd.boot). 
Restart the computer and you should have two choices in the list and you 
can choose to boot windows or FBSD.

Best of luck,
Joe.
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

Hi Joe!

Thanks for that. I'll try that today evening from home, and see how it
goes. :))

But now here's something else. A doubt actually, based on what you
said. I didn't mention this in my previous post -- but I had infact
copied the "/boot/boot0" file to my WinXP partition (though I can't
recollect if I renamed the file like you said), and poof!! my whole
parition table and MBR was overwritten!! Suddenly there's no more
WinXP, and all my partitions there are gone, and all I can boot into
is FreeBSD!

Thankfully I had Fedora, and using that I searched the net for
partition unerasing programs, found a demo version which would just
show me all the deleted paritions (thank god!), booted with a DOS
floppy and used this program to find the sector numbers of all my
paritions, and then used Linux fdisk to recreate those partitions and
move on. :D

At that time I reasoned out that since "/boot/boot0" is a copy of the
FreeBSD, maybe somehow it overwrote my "/dev/ad0" MBR when I copied
the file over (possibly this file is special or something) and that's
how things got messed up. Could you throw some light on what could
have made things happen that way? Is the fact that I copied "boot0"
without renaming what caused all these problems? Is "boot0" a special
file or something?

Thanks,
Rakhesh

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 09:04:20 +, Joe Kraft <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> > I didnt see a copy of this mail returned to me, so am sure if it has
> > reached the list. Since I just subscribed, its possible something is
> > wrong -- and so am resending it.
> >
> > Sorry for the inconv. :))
> >
> > On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 10:47:41 +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >>Hi,
> >>
> >>Are there any issues in booting FreeBSD using NTLDR? My machine has
> >>Windows XP, Fedora Core 3, and FreeBSD-5.3, and while I know I can use
> >>GRUB to boot FreeBSD, I want to try booting it using NTLDR. Just for
> >>kicks -- its something I haven't tried so far. :))
> >>
> >>My ad0 disk has WinXP (and NTLDR), while ad1 has FreeBSD. I tried the
> >>usual suggestions of extracting the first 512 bytes of "/dev/ad1"
> >>(using "dd") into a file and telling NTLDR to use that file for
> >>booting. But it doesn't work. Then I tried extracting 512 bytes from
> >>other locations like "/dev/ad1s1" and "/dev/ad1s1a" and "/dev/ad1s1c",
> >>but to no avail. Finally I even tried copying over copying
> >>"/boot/boot1" (and even "/boot/boot2" and "/boot/loader" coz I was at
> >>my wits end) to a file, and telling NTLDR to use that file for booting
> >>-- but again nada! Most of the times I'd get a "Boot Error" message,
> >>while at other times nothing happens.
> >>
> >>Searching around on Google, I found a post to freebsd-stable that asks
> >>the same question
> >>(http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd.org/msg64950.html).
> >>The reply given there was to use this program called BOOTPART (can be
> >>run from Windows, it extracts the bootsector of any partition you
> >>specify, which can then be used to boot into that partition using
> >>NTLDR). Using that program does allow me extract the bootsectors of
> >>the FreeBSD partition, and use that from NTLDR to boot into it -- but
> >>I am still stumped -- how does this program manage to extract the
> >>bootsectors, while "dd" is not? I've used the "dd" method to
> >>successfully boot into Fedora Core 3 using NTLDR, so I know it
> >>generally does the job.
> >>
> >>Any suggestions folks? Is there some incompatibility thing with NTLDR,
> >>or am I going wrong somewhere?
> >>
> >>Thanks,
> >>Rakhesh
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> 
> I'm doing it with Win2k, I haven't tried it yet with XP though.  And
> I'll preface this, with I'm doing this from memory because I can't find
> the web page they originally came from.
> 
> I had Win2k set up already with an empty partition for FBSD.  A fresh
> backup of the windows part, and the magic "recovery disk" may ease
> concerns of trashing what you have, but I like to live dangerously so I
> didn't have them.
> 
> Boot the FBSD install CD and install, when you're setting up the
> partition I've tried to get the installer to leave the boot loader
> alone, but NTLDR gets clobbered every time.
> 
> When you've got FBSD running, save a copy of /boot/boot0 somewhere you
> will be able to get to it from Windows.
> 
> Now you've bot FBSD but not windows, now go back to your Win2k install
> CD and "repair" your current installation, all you should have do do is
> the 'inspect boot files" part.
> 
> Once windows restarts, as "administrator" you need to edit boot.ini to
> add an entry for FBSD.  Mine looks like (the last line wrapped, but
> should be a single line):
> 
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] mnt]# cat boot.ini
> [boot loader]
> timeout=10
> default=C:\freebsd.boot
> [operating systems]
> C:\freebsd.boot="FreeBSD"
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
> Professional" /fastdetect
> 
> Then copy the boot0 file to C: d

Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Loren M. Lang]

On Sun, Jan 30, 2005 at 03:35:45PM +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> Hi Joe!
> 
> Thanks for that. I'll try that today evening from home, and see how it
> goes. :))
> 
> But now here's something else. A doubt actually, based on what you
> said. I didn't mention this in my previous post -- but I had infact
> copied the "/boot/boot0" file to my WinXP partition (though I can't
> recollect if I renamed the file like you said), and poof!! my whole
> parition table and MBR was overwritten!! Suddenly there's no more
> WinXP, and all my partitions there are gone, and all I can boot into
> is FreeBSD!
> 
> Thankfully I had Fedora, and using that I searched the net for
> partition unerasing programs, found a demo version which would just
> show me all the deleted paritions (thank god!), booted with a DOS
> floppy and used this program to find the sector numbers of all my
> paritions, and then used Linux fdisk to recreate those partitions and
> move on. :D
> 
> At that time I reasoned out that since "/boot/boot0" is a copy of the
> FreeBSD, maybe somehow it overwrote my "/dev/ad0" MBR when I copied
> the file over (possibly this file is special or something) and that's
> how things got messed up. Could you throw some light on what could
> have made things happen that way? Is the fact that I copied "boot0"
> without renaming what caused all these problems? Is "boot0" a special
> file or something?

No, boot0 is just a normal file that is 512 bytes long.  There is
nothing special about it.  In it is a bootloader program that can be
used to boot FreeBSD, and if you run it during boot, it will read the
partition table and look for all OSes.  I think it will modify the
partition table, though, marking the last OS you booted into, but that's
the program running doing that, the file itself is harmless.

> 
> Thanks,
> Rakhesh
> 
> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 09:04:20 +, Joe Kraft <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> > > I didnt see a copy of this mail returned to me, so am sure if it has
> > > reached the list. Since I just subscribed, its possible something is
> > > wrong -- and so am resending it.
> > >
> > > Sorry for the inconv. :))
> > >
> > > On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 10:47:41 +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan
> > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > >
> > >>Hi,
> > >>
> > >>Are there any issues in booting FreeBSD using NTLDR? My machine has
> > >>Windows XP, Fedora Core 3, and FreeBSD-5.3, and while I know I can use
> > >>GRUB to boot FreeBSD, I want to try booting it using NTLDR. Just for
> > >>kicks -- its something I haven't tried so far. :))
> > >>
> > >>My ad0 disk has WinXP (and NTLDR), while ad1 has FreeBSD. I tried the
> > >>usual suggestions of extracting the first 512 bytes of "/dev/ad1"
> > >>(using "dd") into a file and telling NTLDR to use that file for
> > >>booting. But it doesn't work. Then I tried extracting 512 bytes from
> > >>other locations like "/dev/ad1s1" and "/dev/ad1s1a" and "/dev/ad1s1c",
> > >>but to no avail. Finally I even tried copying over copying
> > >>"/boot/boot1" (and even "/boot/boot2" and "/boot/loader" coz I was at
> > >>my wits end) to a file, and telling NTLDR to use that file for booting
> > >>-- but again nada! Most of the times I'd get a "Boot Error" message,
> > >>while at other times nothing happens.
> > >>
> > >>Searching around on Google, I found a post to freebsd-stable that asks
> > >>the same question
> > >>(http://www.mail-archive.com/freebsd-stable@freebsd.org/msg64950.html).
> > >>The reply given there was to use this program called BOOTPART (can be
> > >>run from Windows, it extracts the bootsector of any partition you
> > >>specify, which can then be used to boot into that partition using
> > >>NTLDR). Using that program does allow me extract the bootsectors of
> > >>the FreeBSD partition, and use that from NTLDR to boot into it -- but
> > >>I am still stumped -- how does this program manage to extract the
> > >>bootsectors, while "dd" is not? I've used the "dd" method to
> > >>successfully boot into Fedora Core 3 using NTLDR, so I know it
> > >>generally does the job.
> > >>
> > >>Any suggestions folks? Is there some incompatibility thing with NTLDR,
> > >>or am I going wrong somewhere?
> > >>
> > >>Thanks,
> > >>Rakhesh
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > 
> > I'm doing it with Win2k, I haven't tried it yet with XP though.  And
> > I'll preface this, with I'm doing this from memory because I can't find
> > the web page they originally came from.
> > 
> > I had Win2k set up already with an empty partition for FBSD.  A fresh
> > backup of the windows part, and the magic "recovery disk" may ease
> > concerns of trashing what you have, but I like to live dangerously so I
> > didn't have them.
> > 
> > Boot the FBSD install CD and install, when you're setting up the
> > partition I've tried to get the installer to leave the boot loader
> > alone, but NTLDR gets clobbered every time.
> > 
> > When you've got FBSD running, save a copy of /boot/boot0 somewhere you
> > will 

Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Gustavo De Nardin]

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 10:47:41 +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Are there any issues in booting FreeBSD using NTLDR? My machine has
> Windows XP, Fedora Core 3, and FreeBSD-5.3, and while I know I can use
> GRUB to boot FreeBSD, I want to try booting it using NTLDR. Just for
> kicks -- its something I haven't tried so far. :))

  I recommend using BootPart: .

-- 
(null)
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

> No, boot0 is just a normal file that is 512 bytes long.  There is
> nothing special about it.  In it is a bootloader program that can be
> used to boot FreeBSD, and if you run it during boot, it will read the
> partition table and look for all OSes.  I think it will modify the
> partition table, though, marking the last OS you booted into, but that's
> the program running doing that, the file itself is harmless.

Ok. I must have used some other command then, which resulted in my
first disk MBR getting over-written ... strange. :-/

By the way, does the fact that NTLDR is on my first disk, while
FreeBSD (and hence its MBR boot0) is on my second disk complicate
matters? I mean, you mention boot0 will modify my partition table to
reflect which OS was booted last -- will it by any chance modify the
partition table on the first disk and hence mess it?


-- 
Rakhesh
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Mark Ovens]

Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
No, boot0 is just a normal file that is 512 bytes long.  There is
nothing special about it.  In it is a bootloader program that can be
used to boot FreeBSD, and if you run it during boot, it will read the
partition table and look for all OSes.  I think it will modify the
partition table, though, marking the last OS you booted into, but that's
the program running doing that, the file itself is harmless.
Ok. I must have used some other command then, which resulted in my
first disk MBR getting over-written ... strange. :-/
By the way, does the fact that NTLDR is on my first disk, while
FreeBSD (and hence its MBR boot0) is on my second disk complicate
matters? I mean, you mention boot0 will modify my partition table to
reflect which OS was booted last -- will it by any chance modify the
partition table on the first disk and hence mess it?

Yes and yes, 
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/disks.html#NT-BOOTLOADER

Regards,
Mark
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Loren M. Lang]

On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 11:59:11AM +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> > No, boot0 is just a normal file that is 512 bytes long.  There is
> > nothing special about it.  In it is a bootloader program that can be
> > used to boot FreeBSD, and if you run it during boot, it will read the
> > partition table and look for all OSes.  I think it will modify the
> > partition table, though, marking the last OS you booted into, but that's
> > the program running doing that, the file itself is harmless.
> 
> Ok. I must have used some other command then, which resulted in my
> first disk MBR getting over-written ... strange. :-/
> 
> By the way, does the fact that NTLDR is on my first disk, while
> FreeBSD (and hence its MBR boot0) is on my second disk complicate
> matters? I mean, you mention boot0 will modify my partition table to
> reflect which OS was booted last -- will it by any chance modify the
> partition table on the first disk and hence mess it?
> 

You can disable this behavior of boot0 when you install the MBR on the
second disk using the "-o noupdate" argument to boot0cfg.

> 
> -- 
>   Rakhesh
>   [EMAIL PROTECTED]

-- 
I sense much NT in you.
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Bluescreen leads to downtime.
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NT is the path to the darkside.
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

Thanks for that link! I had read that part of the handbook a long time
ago, and that's how my ideas of boot0 and boot1 and etc etc had gotten
clear. Glad to see it once again -- in the context of my question! :))

So what I understand now is -- copying boot0 over to c:\bootsect.bsd
will *not* work. Which explains why my MBR got messed up when I tried
booting FreeBSD this way. :(

But I'm still confused. How do I install boot0 using sysinstall? As
far as I remm, sysinstall gives three options -- (a) leave the MBR
untouched, (b) put a standard MBR, and (c) install BootEasy. My
understanding is that option (b) copies boot0 to the MBR, and this
that is what I had chosen while installing FreeBSD. How does one copy
boot0 to a file using sysinstall??


On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 08:44:23 +, Mark Ovens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> >> No, boot0 is just a normal file that is 512 bytes long.  There is
> >> nothing special about it.  In it is a bootloader program that can be
> >> used to boot FreeBSD, and if you run it during boot, it will read the
> >> partition table and look for all OSes.  I think it will modify the
> >> partition table, though, marking the last OS you booted into, but that's
> >> the program running doing that, the file itself is harmless.
> >
> > Ok. I must have used some other command then, which resulted in my
> > first disk MBR getting over-written ... strange. :-/
> >
> > By the way, does the fact that NTLDR is on my first disk, while
> > FreeBSD (and hence its MBR boot0) is on my second disk complicate
> > matters? I mean, you mention boot0 will modify my partition table to
> > reflect which OS was booted last -- will it by any chance modify the
> > partition table on the first disk and hence mess it?
> >
> >
> 
> Yes and yes,
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/disks.html#NT-BOOTLOADER
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mark
> 
> ---
> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
> Virus Database (VPS): 0504-4, 28/01/2005
> Tested on: 31/01/2005 08:44:24
> avast! - copyright (c) 2000-2004 ALWIL Software.
> http://www.avast.com
> 
> 


-- 
-- Rakhesh
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

So that means I should install boot0 to the MBR of my second disk,
using boot0cfg with the "-o noupdate" flag, and then extract that MBR
(using "dd" for instance) to a file like c:\bootsectbsd? That should
work?

Or wait, maybe there's no need to extract. When I install boot0 to the
MBR, possibly the boot0 file modified also, and so I just need to copy
that to c:\bootsect.bsd and then boot using NTLDR. Right?


On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 02:11:52 -0800, Loren M. Lang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 11:59:11AM +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> > > No, boot0 is just a normal file that is 512 bytes long.  There is
> > > nothing special about it.  In it is a bootloader program that can be
> > > used to boot FreeBSD, and if you run it during boot, it will read the
> > > partition table and look for all OSes.  I think it will modify the
> > > partition table, though, marking the last OS you booted into, but that's
> > > the program running doing that, the file itself is harmless.
> >
> > Ok. I must have used some other command then, which resulted in my
> > first disk MBR getting over-written ... strange. :-/
> >
> > By the way, does the fact that NTLDR is on my first disk, while
> > FreeBSD (and hence its MBR boot0) is on my second disk complicate
> > matters? I mean, you mention boot0 will modify my partition table to
> > reflect which OS was booted last -- will it by any chance modify the
> > partition table on the first disk and hence mess it?
> >
> 
> You can disable this behavior of boot0 when you install the MBR on the
> second disk using the "-o noupdate" argument to boot0cfg.
> 
> >
> > --
> >   Rakhesh
> >   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> --
> I sense much NT in you.
> NT leads to Bluescreen.
> Bluescreen leads to downtime.
> Downtime leads to suffering.
> NT is the path to the darkside.
> Powerful Unix is.
> 
> Public Key: ftp://ftp.tallye.com/pub/lorenl_pubkey.asc
> Fingerprint: B3B9 D669 69C9 09EC 1BCD  835A FAF3 7A46 E4A3 280C
> 
> 


-- 
-- Rakhesh
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Loren M. Lang]

On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 02:16:25PM +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> Thanks for that link! I had read that part of the handbook a long time
> ago, and that's how my ideas of boot0 and boot1 and etc etc had gotten
> clear. Glad to see it once again -- in the context of my question! :))
> 
> So what I understand now is -- copying boot0 over to c:\bootsect.bsd
> will *not* work. Which explains why my MBR got messed up when I tried
> booting FreeBSD this way. :(
> 
> But I'm still confused. How do I install boot0 using sysinstall? As
> far as I remm, sysinstall gives three options -- (a) leave the MBR
> untouched, (b) put a standard MBR, and (c) install BootEasy. My
> understanding is that option (b) copies boot0 to the MBR, and this
> that is what I had chosen while installing FreeBSD. How does one copy
> boot0 to a file using sysinstall??

I think option b is actually /boot/mbr and BootEasy refers to
/boot/boot0.  They are two different boot loaders, mbr being a very
simple one with no configuration.  I think fdisk -B is used to install
/boot/mbr to the mbr of a harddisk and boot0cfg is used to install
BootEasy.

> 
> 
> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 08:44:23 +, Mark Ovens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> > >> No, boot0 is just a normal file that is 512 bytes long.  There is
> > >> nothing special about it.  In it is a bootloader program that can be
> > >> used to boot FreeBSD, and if you run it during boot, it will read the
> > >> partition table and look for all OSes.  I think it will modify the
> > >> partition table, though, marking the last OS you booted into, but that's
> > >> the program running doing that, the file itself is harmless.
> > >
> > > Ok. I must have used some other command then, which resulted in my
> > > first disk MBR getting over-written ... strange. :-/
> > >
> > > By the way, does the fact that NTLDR is on my first disk, while
> > > FreeBSD (and hence its MBR boot0) is on my second disk complicate
> > > matters? I mean, you mention boot0 will modify my partition table to
> > > reflect which OS was booted last -- will it by any chance modify the
> > > partition table on the first disk and hence mess it?
> > >
> > >
> > 
> > Yes and yes,
> > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/disks.html#NT-BOOTLOADER
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Mark
> > 
> > ---
> > avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
> > Virus Database (VPS): 0504-4, 28/01/2005
> > Tested on: 31/01/2005 08:44:24
> > avast! - copyright (c) 2000-2004 ALWIL Software.
> > http://www.avast.com
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
>   -- Rakhesh
>  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"

-- 
I sense much NT in you.
NT leads to Bluescreen.
Bluescreen leads to downtime.
Downtime leads to suffering.
NT is the path to the darkside.
Powerful Unix is.

Public Key: ftp://ftp.tallye.com/pub/lorenl_pubkey.asc
Fingerprint: B3B9 D669 69C9 09EC 1BCD  835A FAF3 7A46 E4A3 280C
 
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Mark Ovens]

Loren M. Lang wrote:
On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 02:16:25PM +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
Thanks for that link! I had read that part of the handbook a long time
ago, and that's how my ideas of boot0 and boot1 and etc etc had gotten
clear. Glad to see it once again -- in the context of my question! :))
So what I understand now is -- copying boot0 over to c:\bootsect.bsd
will *not* work. Which explains why my MBR got messed up when I tried
booting FreeBSD this way. :(
But I'm still confused. How do I install boot0 using sysinstall? As
far as I remm, sysinstall gives three options -- (a) leave the MBR
untouched, (b) put a standard MBR, and (c) install BootEasy. My
understanding is that option (b) copies boot0 to the MBR, and this
that is what I had chosen while installing FreeBSD. How does one copy
boot0 to a file using sysinstall??
I think option b is actually /boot/mbr and BootEasy refers to
/boot/boot0.  They are two different boot loaders, mbr being a very
simple one with no configuration.  I think fdisk -B is used to install
/boot/mbr to the mbr of a harddisk and boot0cfg is used to install
BootEasy.
I rewrote that section of the FAQ years ago (around FreeBSD 3.1!!) 
because the previous wording was unclear and I did _exactly_ what 
Rakhesh has done :-(

At that time it was not possible to add FreeBSD to the NTLDR menu if 
FreeBSD was on a _different disk_ so you had to either use the FreeBSD 
boot menu or put the FreeBSD root partition on the same disk as NT 
(which usually required a BIOS that could boot beyond the first 1024 
cylinders) or use the FreeBSD boot manager (which used /boot/boot0).

This is what I have done ever since. As I only have a single user set up 
in XP it doesn't show the NTLDR menu so you don't have to go through two 
boot menus, just the FreeBSD F1/F5 choice.

Caveat: Things have no doubt changed since then so it may now be 
possible to add FreeBSD to the NTLDR menu with FreeBSD on a different 
disk, but I've never investigated it as I am happy with the solution I use.

HTH
Regards,
Mark

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 08:44:23 +, Mark Ovens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> >> No, boot0 is just a normal file that is 512 bytes long.  There is
> >> nothing special about it.  In it is a bootloader program that can be
> >> used to boot FreeBSD, and if you run it during boot, it will read the
> >> partition table and look for all OSes.  I think it will modify the
> >> partition table, though, marking the last OS you booted into, but that's
> >> the program running doing that, the file itself is harmless.
> >
> > Ok. I must have used some other command then, which resulted in my
> > first disk MBR getting over-written ... strange. :-/
> >
> > By the way, does the fact that NTLDR is on my first disk, while
> > FreeBSD (and hence its MBR boot0) is on my second disk complicate
> > matters? I mean, you mention boot0 will modify my partition table to
> > reflect which OS was booted last -- will it by any chance modify the
> > partition table on the first disk and hence mess it?
> >
> >
> 
> Yes and yes,
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/disks.html#NT-BOOTLOADER
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Mark
> 
> ---
> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
> Virus Database (VPS): 0504-4, 28/01/2005
> Tested on: 31/01/2005 08:44:24
> avast! - copyright (c) 2000-2004 ALWIL Software.
> http://www.avast.com
> 
> 

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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 11:33:59 +, Mark Ovens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I rewrote that section of the FAQ years ago (around FreeBSD 3.1!!)
> because the previous wording was unclear and I did _exactly_ what
> Rakhesh has done :-(

Ah! Glad to see I am not the only one. :))) Felt really goofy when I
read that this goofup that I did was clearly documented in the
handbook! Thankfully I had backups (I keep doing this sort of messups
every now and then :p) and so I wasn't too freaked out when I
discovered my entire partition table and boot sectors erased -- but it
wasn't a nice sight either. The thought of re-installing everything,
plus restoring from backups, yada yada yada ... thankfully I managed
to find a program for recovering the partitions.

> Caveat: Things have no doubt changed since then so it may now be
> possible to add FreeBSD to the NTLDR menu with FreeBSD on a different
> disk, but I've never investigated it as I am happy with the solution I use.

Actually, I know that I can very well use GRUB or BootEasy to do this
job. But I dunno, its this curiousity that has gotten over me -- to
explore NTLDR a bit more, and to see why I can't boot into FreeBSD
with it. If I had gotten a definitive answer that its *not* possible,
then I would have given up -- but as it is, nobody has said its not
possible, and added to that I can see if I extract the bootsectors
using a program like BootPart then things work, and so I am highly
curious why I can't get things working with conventional tools and
methods like "dd" etc! Guess if I get no answers, I'll just start
using BootEasy, but I'm curious why things dont work nevertheless. :))
And I'm all the more curious what changes BootPart makes to the
extracted bootsectors to make them work with NTLDR.

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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Mark Ovens]

Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 11:33:59 +, Mark Ovens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I rewrote that section of the FAQ years ago (around FreeBSD 3.1!!)
because the previous wording was unclear and I did _exactly_ what
Rakhesh has done :-(
Ah! Glad to see I am not the only one. :))) Felt really goofy when I
read that this goofup that I did was clearly documented in the
handbook! Thankfully I had backups (I keep doing this sort of messups
every now and then :p) and so I wasn't too freaked out when I
discovered my entire partition table and boot sectors erased -- but it
wasn't a nice sight either. The thought of re-installing everything,
plus restoring from backups, yada yada yada ... thankfully I managed
to find a program for recovering the partitions.
Hehe! I did it the hard way; I manually recreated the partition table - 
3 partitions! In fact.[roots around in drawer]..yes, still got 
the printout of the spreadsheet I used to calculated the start and end 
CHS values - don't know why, the disk was replaced ages ago :-)

Caveat: Things have no doubt changed since then so it may now be
possible to add FreeBSD to the NTLDR menu with FreeBSD on a different
disk, but I've never investigated it as I am happy with the solution I use.
Actually, I know that I can very well use GRUB or BootEasy to do this
job. But I dunno, its this curiousity that has gotten over me -- to
explore NTLDR a bit more, and to see why I can't boot into FreeBSD
with it. If I had gotten a definitive answer that its *not* possible,
then I would have given up -- but as it is, nobody has said its not
possible, and added to that I can see if I extract the bootsectors
using a program like BootPart then things work, and so I am highly
curious why I can't get things working with conventional tools and
methods like "dd" etc! Guess if I get no answers, I'll just start
using BootEasy, but I'm curious why things dont work nevertheless. :))
And I'm all the more curious what changes BootPart makes to the
extracted bootsectors to make them work with NTLDR.
IRCC, boot0 is the MBR and boot1 is the boot sector (of the FreeBSD 
partition (slice)) and they only ontain info about the local disk, i.e. 
_relative_ info in effect, so if FreeBSD is on your second disk and you 
copy boot1 to C:\BOOTSECT.BSD and add an entry for it in BOOT.INI then 
NTLDR has know way of knowing that it refers to the second HDD and so 
can't boot because the info doesn't match the layout of the first HDD. 
Remember boot0 and boot1 are restricted to 512bytes - one sector. That 
is the reason as far as remember.

Mark
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Joe Kraft]

Joe Kraft wrote:
Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
I'm doing it with Win2k, I haven't tried it yet with XP though.  And 
I'll preface this, with I'm doing this from memory because I can't find 
the web page they originally came from.
Shame on me for taking a stab at this one without confirming what I was 
saying, and confusing the whole problem with one *little* character.  :-)

When you've got FBSD running, save a copy of /boot/boot0 somewhere you 
will be able to get to it from Windows.
This should have said boot1, for all the reasons mentioned in the rest 
of the thread and in the handbook.  Sorry,

Joe.
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 16:06:39 +, Mark Ovens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Hehe! I did it the hard way; I manually recreated the partition table -
> 3 partitions! In fact.[roots around in drawer]..yes, still got
> the printout of the spreadsheet I used to calculated the start and end
> CHS values - don't know why, the disk was replaced ages ago :-)

Hehe! How did u manually recreate the partition table? U had the sizes
and sectors etc stored somewhere? On my previous machine, I used to
have fdisk listings of all my disks as a printout -- coz I've done
this kind of goofups many a times, and so usually have been careful to
keep a listing of the sector values etc. But this time, I was on my
parents' machine, and since I hadn't really started using it big time,
I was careless enough not to take a precaution like this. (But I guess
I was not thaaat careless enough to not take backups either, hehe!)

I was lucky to find this demo program called Active Partition UnEraser
or something. Being demo, it would only show me the starting and
ending sectors of all the partitions -- but that was fine with me coz
once I got those values, it was just a matter of noting them down and
then booting into Linux (coz that's what I had apart from FreeBSD) and
recreating the tables using its fdisk program. :))

> IRCC, boot0 is the MBR and boot1 is the boot sector (of the FreeBSD
> partition (slice)) and they only ontain info about the local disk, i.e.
> _relative_ info in effect, so if FreeBSD is on your second disk and you
> copy boot1 to C:\BOOTSECT.BSD and add an entry for it in BOOT.INI then
> NTLDR has know way of knowing that it refers to the second HDD and so
> can't boot because the info doesn't match the layout of the first HDD.
> Remember boot0 and boot1 are restricted to 512bytes - one sector. That
> is the reason as far as remember.

Oh yeah ... doh! Silly me! Ofcourse boot1 contains the info relative
to the FreeBSD disk, so copying it across to C:\BOOTSECT.BSD wont
help! Silly me! :)) So that's why copying boot1 and loader didn't help
-- coz they were all relative to the FreeBSD disk. And copying boot0
too didnt help coz of the MBR re-writing thingy. :p

What magic does BootPart do, I still wonder! I mean, if its just
extracting the bootsectors as the program says, then an alternative
way of extracting (like "dd" etc) too should work! But they dont --
meaning, BootPart does more than just extracting, I guess.

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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:22:48 +, Joe Kraft <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This should have said boot1, for all the reasons mentioned in the rest
> of the thread and in the handbook.  Sorry,

Nah! boot1 does not work either! I've tried ... I guess it might work
if FreeBSD is on the first disk, but it doesn't work if its on the
second.

The only way I know as of now to boot into FreeBSD -- if its on the
second disk -- and you want to use NTLDR, is to use something like
BootPart to extract the bootsectors into C:\BOOTSECT.BSD and use that
in BOOT.INI to boot. Now why are things that way, is still a mystery
to me. :))


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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Loren M. Lang]

On Tue, Feb 01, 2005 at 10:04:12AM +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 16:06:39 +, Mark Ovens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > Hehe! I did it the hard way; I manually recreated the partition table -
> > 3 partitions! In fact.[roots around in drawer]..yes, still got
> > the printout of the spreadsheet I used to calculated the start and end
> > CHS values - don't know why, the disk was replaced ages ago :-)
> 
> Hehe! How did u manually recreate the partition table? U had the sizes
> and sectors etc stored somewhere? On my previous machine, I used to
> have fdisk listings of all my disks as a printout -- coz I've done
> this kind of goofups many a times, and so usually have been careful to
> keep a listing of the sector values etc. But this time, I was on my
> parents' machine, and since I hadn't really started using it big time,
> I was careless enough not to take a precaution like this. (But I guess
> I was not thaaat careless enough to not take backups either, hehe!)
> 
> I was lucky to find this demo program called Active Partition UnEraser
> or something. Being demo, it would only show me the starting and
> ending sectors of all the partitions -- but that was fine with me coz
> once I got those values, it was just a matter of noting them down and
> then booting into Linux (coz that's what I had apart from FreeBSD) and
> recreating the tables using its fdisk program. :))
> 
> > IRCC, boot0 is the MBR and boot1 is the boot sector (of the FreeBSD
> > partition (slice)) and they only ontain info about the local disk, i.e.
> > _relative_ info in effect, so if FreeBSD is on your second disk and you
> > copy boot1 to C:\BOOTSECT.BSD and add an entry for it in BOOT.INI then
> > NTLDR has know way of knowing that it refers to the second HDD and so
> > can't boot because the info doesn't match the layout of the first HDD.
> > Remember boot0 and boot1 are restricted to 512bytes - one sector. That
> > is the reason as far as remember.

I think that you should be able to use boot0 and boot1 as a file once
the apropriate fields are filled in.  When boot0 and boot1 are written
to the disk in their special locations, several bytes of each file are
modified to reflex various paramaters like which disk or partition they
should use.  You should be able to extract them with dd and boot them
externally from my understanding of it.  boot1 is normally written to
the first sector of the partitionthat freebsd is installed on, if that's
the first partition on ur second hard drive then:

dd if=/dev/ad1s1 of=boot1.img count=1

will extract the file to boot1.img might NTLDR should be able to use.

dd if=/dev/ad1 of=boot0.img count=1

Will extract boot0 from the first sector of the second hard drive,
otherwise know as the Master Boot Record.  If you use boot0, make sure
you disable the update feature of it.  boot1 on the other hand doesn't
modify anything.  boot1's sole purpose is to load the second stage boot2
which is stored a little deeper into the slice and is bigger than 1
sector.  boot1 is needed to get around a limitation of 512 bytes for the
boot sectore of the slice.  For NTLDR, you shouldn't need to worry about
boot2 though, just extract boot1 as shown above.

> 
> Oh yeah ... doh! Silly me! Ofcourse boot1 contains the info relative
> to the FreeBSD disk, so copying it across to C:\BOOTSECT.BSD wont
> help! Silly me! :)) So that's why copying boot1 and loader didn't help
> -- coz they were all relative to the FreeBSD disk. And copying boot0
> too didnt help coz of the MBR re-writing thingy. :p
> 
> What magic does BootPart do, I still wonder! I mean, if its just
> extracting the bootsectors as the program says, then an alternative
> way of extracting (like "dd" etc) too should work! But they dont --
> meaning, BootPart does more than just extracting, I guess.
> 
> -- 
>   -- Rakhesh
>  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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-- 
I sense much NT in you.
NT leads to Bluescreen.
Bluescreen leads to downtime.
Downtime leads to suffering.
NT is the path to the darkside.
Powerful Unix is.

Public Key: ftp://ftp.tallye.com/pub/lorenl_pubkey.asc
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 04:10:49 -0800, Loren M. Lang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I think that you should be able to use boot0 and boot1 as a file once
> the apropriate fields are filled in.  When boot0 and boot1 are written
> to the disk in their special locations, several bytes of each file are
> modified to reflex various paramaters like which disk or partition they
> should use.  You should be able to extract them with dd and boot them
> externally from my understanding of it.  boot1 is normally written to
> the first sector of the partitionthat freebsd is installed on, if that's
> the first partition on ur second hard drive then:
> 
> dd if=/dev/ad1s1 of=boot1.img count=1
> 
> will extract the file to boot1.img might NTLDR should be able to use.
> 
> dd if=/dev/ad1 of=boot0.img count=1

Nopes. This too is something I had tried. Coz I figured if BootPart is
simply extracting sectors from the FreeBSD slice, then either of the
commands above should do the same trick! But nopes, that too gave me
errors. This is what really got me stumped! :((

But hmm, now that I look at ur commands once again, I realize that I
had also added an option like "bs=512". As in, what I used was ``dd
if=/dev/ad1 of=boot0.img count=1 bs=512''. No specific reason for that
extra option, just that that's what I used to extract the bootsectors
for Fedora, and I figured its job is to extract just the first 512
bytes (and nothing else). Do you think "bs=512" could be what's making
things go wrong for me?

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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 19:04:07 +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 04:10:49 -0800, Loren M. Lang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I think that you should be able to use boot0 and boot1 as a file once
> > the apropriate fields are filled in.  When boot0 and boot1 are written
> > to the disk in their special locations, several bytes of each file are
> > modified to reflex various paramaters like which disk or partition they
> > should use.  You should be able to extract them with dd and boot them
> > externally from my understanding of it.  boot1 is normally written to
> > the first sector of the partitionthat freebsd is installed on, if that's
> > the first partition on ur second hard drive then:
> >
> > dd if=/dev/ad1s1 of=boot1.img count=1
> >
> > will extract the file to boot1.img might NTLDR should be able to use.
> >
> > dd if=/dev/ad1 of=boot0.img count=1

I just tried these again. Same results as when I had used the "bs=512"
option. Extracting "boot0.img" gets me back to the NTLDR screen;
extracting "boot1.img" gives me a "Boot Error" message.

But what you said above gave me an idea. Possibly BootPart modifies
the extracted bootsectors specially, changing the special parameters
to enable booting of the second disk from the first? Its a thought ...
maybe the way these files are written to the disk (from where dd
extracts them), the special parameters are not such that they can be
booted from the first disk. But when BootPart extracts the sectors, it
modifies these parameters, enabling the booting. What say?

-- 
-- Rakhesh
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Loren M. Lang]

On Tue, Feb 01, 2005 at 07:32:07PM +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 19:04:07 +0400, Rakhesh Sasidharan
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 04:10:49 -0800, Loren M. Lang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > I think that you should be able to use boot0 and boot1 as a file once
> > > the apropriate fields are filled in.  When boot0 and boot1 are written
> > > to the disk in their special locations, several bytes of each file are
> > > modified to reflex various paramaters like which disk or partition they
> > > should use.  You should be able to extract them with dd and boot them
> > > externally from my understanding of it.  boot1 is normally written to
> > > the first sector of the partitionthat freebsd is installed on, if that's
> > > the first partition on ur second hard drive then:
> > >
> > > dd if=/dev/ad1s1 of=boot1.img count=1
> > >
> > > will extract the file to boot1.img might NTLDR should be able to use.
> > >
> > > dd if=/dev/ad1 of=boot0.img count=1
> 
> I just tried these again. Same results as when I had used the "bs=512"
> option. Extracting "boot0.img" gets me back to the NTLDR screen;
> extracting "boot1.img" gives me a "Boot Error" message.
> 
> But what you said above gave me an idea. Possibly BootPart modifies
> the extracted bootsectors specially, changing the special parameters
> to enable booting of the second disk from the first? Its a thought ...
> maybe the way these files are written to the disk (from where dd
> extracts them), the special parameters are not such that they can be
> booted from the first disk. But when BootPart extracts the sectors, it
> modifies these parameters, enabling the booting. What say?

bs=512 is the default.  The typical sector size of disk drive is 512
bytes.  This is so engrained right now that even flash memory sticks
have to emulate 512 byte sectors when there is nothing that actually
mandates that for flash chips.

Unless BootPart specifically know about how the freebsd boot loaders
work and how to reconize them, I doubt that it's modifying those
parameters.  Now the last 66 bytes of the MBR stores the partition table
of the hard drive, it's possible that BootPart might try to modify that
as it's not part of the boot loader, but the boot loader uses that
information.

> 
> -- 
>   -- Rakhesh
>  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 01:48:47 -0800, Loren M. Lang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Unless BootPart specifically know about how the freebsd boot loaders
> work and how to reconize them, I doubt that it's modifying those
> parameters.  Now the last 66 bytes of the MBR stores the partition table
> of the hard drive, it's possible that BootPart might try to modify that
> as it's not part of the boot loader, but the boot loader uses that
> information.

Possible. I even checked BootPart's site and forums, but didn't find
any mention that it is "FreeBSD-aware" etc. All they talk about is
Windows and DOS and Linux. I had a good mind to sign up on the forums
and ask the author -- but wasn't too keen on signing up and so left
it.

I know it modifies the bootsector some way, coz when I boot using the
extracted file I get a message (and a second's pause) saying that this
bootsector was extracted using BootPart blah blah ...

-- 
-- Rakhesh
   rax -at- rakhesh -dot- com
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Mark Ovens]

Rakhesh Sasidharan wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 01:48:47 -0800, Loren M. Lang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Unless BootPart specifically know about how the freebsd boot loaders
work and how to reconize them, I doubt that it's modifying those
parameters.  Now the last 66 bytes of the MBR stores the partition table
of the hard drive, it's possible that BootPart might try to modify that
as it's not part of the boot loader, but the boot loader uses that
information.
Possible. I even checked BootPart's site and forums, but didn't find
any mention that it is "FreeBSD-aware" etc. All they talk about is
Windows and DOS and Linux. I had a good mind to sign up on the forums
and ask the author -- but wasn't too keen on signing up and so left
it.
I know it modifies the bootsector some way, coz when I boot using the
extracted file I get a message (and a second's pause) saying that this
bootsector was extracted using BootPart blah blah ...
I don't know about BootPart, but the FreeBSD boot manager replaces the 
MBR on _both_ disks and allows booting from either.

The limitation is in NTLDR because it's M$ so is only designed for 
booting M$ OSes and the BOOTSECT file method is designed for booting DOS 
and non-NT class Windows which could only boot from the first partition 
on the first drive anyway therefore there is no need for NTLDR to 
support booting from the second, third, etc. disk using a BOOTSECT file.

Mark
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Re: Booting FreeBSD-5.3 from NTLDR

[Rakhesh Sasidharan]

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 16:05:06 +, Mark Ovens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The limitation is in NTLDR because it's M$ so is only designed for
> booting M$ OSes and the BOOTSECT file method is designed for booting DOS
> and non-NT class Windows which could only boot from the first partition
> on the first drive anyway therefore there is no need for NTLDR to
> support booting from the second, third, etc. disk using a BOOTSECT file.

Yes. I figured that yesterday after checking around. NTLDR has a
limitation of not being able to boot OSes from other disks. So no, I
dont think its a FreeBSD problem as such -- BootPart prolly modifies
the bootsectors (while extracting) to add whatever info is required to
let NTLDR boot it. :))

-- 
-- Rakhesh
   rax -at- rakhesh -dot- com
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