Re: I killed Windows after installing Freebsd- a blessing in disguise? Not really.

From: jpd (read_the_sig_at_do.not.spam.it.invalid)
Date: 07/12/05 

Date: 12 Jul 2005 15:36:36 GMT

Begin <1121180920.757732.236230@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>
On 2005-07-12, fotoobscura@gmail.com <fotoobscura@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2) Boot Freebsd iso and go to label. Find three partitions partition
> magic made for me; ads1-ads3 (maybe ads0-ads3, I forget). ads1 is my

You probably knew, but I'm going to stress here that while partition
magic calls that partitions, we call it slices. We already had
partitions, namely those subdivisions that make up a disklabel.

[snippety]
> Seems like I need to re-write the boot loader for XP onto the MBR, or
> something like that.

No, you shouldn't need that. That bootloader is the ``standard'' one
that just loads another bootloader that is at the start of the active
slice. The FreeBSD one, as you know, lets you select from a couple of
options. It checks for disk-ids it recognizes, but also has a bitmap to
force-disable loading from certain slices.

So, *something* is wrong but ATM I can't divine what, exactly.

First off, some general sanity checking: check the numbers on the
slices. You want to be sure you didn't accidentally overwrote stuff
there. Say, through the slices overlapping each other. Partition magic
should do the right thing but that's no guarantee something didn't go
wrong. Also, check the disk-ids. The xp one should probably the one
for NTFS. FreeBSD expects 165 (0xa5) for its slices.

Next, try reloading (using eg the FreeBSD cd) the standard non-selector
bootsector, and mark the xp slice as active. That should give you xp. If
that works, you can try booting FreeBSD again. (For example using the cd
for the initial loader, then have it ``jump over'' and load your FreeBSD
slice from harddisk. This is possible.) After that try reinstalling the
FreeBSD selector-boot0. 

-- 
  j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Installing on a SCSI disc
    ... you seem to be missing the whole concept of FreeBSDs partitions and ... Unlike Linux FreeBSD doesn't boot off this directory, ... > one large partition and allowing FreeBSD to make slices. ...
    (comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc)
  • Re: partition recovery
    ... In FreeBSD terminalogy this is now 2 slices:- ... more specifically "BSD partitions". ... > no slices - only newfs) ... It seems you have now assigned all "slices" to Linux ...
    (freebsd-questions)
  • Re: amd64 HP SA6i RAID5 no boot
    ... 7-Beta3 vanilla install from CD, I let sysinstall do "automatic" partitions and slices, then stops at "F1 FreeBSD" prompt and beeps. ...
    (freebsd-questions)
  • Re: freebsd isntall, slices vs partitions, memory, booting ??
    ... > a little confused about what the freeBSD install is doing..i think it boots ... ``extended'' slices though. ... > divided into several more partitions to enable many partitions to be ...
    (comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc)
  • Re: Installing Free over linux installation
    ... Using standard installation, I'm trying ... error message about the swap slice: ... FreeBSD is a UNIX/BSD derivative which has its own partitioning ... BSD partitions one of which is is normally used ...
    (freebsd-questions)