*BSD News Article 48405


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From: jin@gracie.lbl.gov (Jin Guojun[ITG])
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: 2.0.5R installation OK; how to boot?
Date: 3 Aug 1995 22:49:55 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Lines: 51
Message-ID: <3vrjqj$t91@overload.lbl.gov>
References: <3vch0k$f0e@Mars.mcs.com> <3vp8kc$7fm@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: gracie.lbl.gov

In article <3vp8kc$7fm@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu>,
David O'Brien <dobrien@seas.gwu.edu> wrote:
>Font (font@MCS.COM) wrote:
>: I am a complete newbie to FreeBSD or other free UNIX-type systems.  I
>: decided to try an installation on the following machine:
>
>: Partitioned SCSI drive into four partitions, /, /usr, /u and swap,
>: each around 500 MMB.  Fine.  Installer found my IDE DOS directories
>: for minimal installation.  Fine.  Install finishes.  Fine.
>
>: Now what?  How do I boot FreeBSD?  I asked for a boot manager.  This
>: probably got put on the SCSI disk so it doesn't do me any good.  I
>: tried typing "hd(1,a)/kernel" when booting from the install floppy.
>: No go, it says "bad disklabelCan't find hd(1,a)/kernel" (exactly like
>

This is a serious problem for BSD (typically BSDi)  booting from a partition
other than the partition 0. That is, sharing BSD with DOS, or installing
BSD onto a SCSI disk dirve. Two bootig parts are needed (Am I right?) --
a boot manager at the first track on the first disk,
and a boot block at first track on the partition the UNIX kernel installed.
Since BSDi trashed the boot manager and block on three my disks, I have been
struggling a few days to figure out how to fix it. First, I tried to installed
FreeBSD to overwrite the bsd boot manager and block; however, it does not work.
I do not know why the FreeBSD and BSDi installing program could not reinstall
the correct boot manager and block.  Some one suggested me to use FDISK /MBR
command under DOS to reinstall the boot manager, so system can boot from the
first partition on the first disk. However, to install either BSDi or FreeBSD
boot manager will not work.  Finally, I have to re-initialize the hard disk.

In your case, you do not need to re-initialize your disk, but you do need to
reinstall the boot manager by reinstalling the FreeBSD again, or manually
install Booteasy if you know how.

>
>I also had trouble getting the Booteasy installed by sysinstall to work.
>I manually installed Booteasy (from MS-DOS) after I installed FreeBSD.
>Worked just fine (I answered "yes" for every drive when it asked).
>

This is nice. Would you please show me how to install Booteasy manually.
I posted such question long time ago and did not get an answer.

Thanks,


--
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