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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!metro!munnari.OZ.AU!news.hawaii.edu!news.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!netnews.nwnet.net!news.microsoft.com!news From: erich@erich4.microsoft.com (Eric Hanchrow) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: How to reinstall the boot manager? Date: 08 Jun 1996 23:31:51 -0700 Organization: Microsoft Corporation Lines: 53 Sender: erich@erich4.microsoft.com Message-ID: <uohmt4hew.fsf@erich4.microsoft.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 157.55.90.44 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.1 This must be a FAQ, but I sure can't find the answer -- either in this newsgroup, or on http://www.freebsd.org/search.html (I can find a ton of similar *questions* at that URL, but no answers). I had FreeBSD 2.1.0 working nicely, with its boot manager. Then I installed Win95, and of course now the boot manager is gone, and I can't figure out how to get it back, nor how else I can boot FreeBSD. I don't absolutely need the boot manager -- if I could make a floppy which would boot my FreeBSD partition for me, that'd be fine too. So in brief: how can I run the nice FreeBSD installation that's still on my disk? In case it matters, here's what I've got on the disks in my computer: first disk: first (and only) partition: FAT. Contains Win95. second disk: first partition : NTFS. Contains Windows NT. second partition: FreeBSD file system. Here's what I tried: * booting from the generic boot disk that comes with FreeBSD-2.1.0: the installation program ran, but it wasn't at all clear how to get the installation program to rewrite my boot sector. * giving parameters to the "boot" program that's on the floppy: I booted off the floppy, and when I saw "Boot:" on the screen, I quickly typed "hd(1,a)/kernel", and the kernel that lives on my FreeBSD partition on the second disk booted -- but it panicked because it couldn't mount the root partition. It was trying to mount sd0a as root, but my root is on sd1a (or maybe sd1b; I forget). I couldn't figure out how to tell it to mount other partitions as root instead; the "-a" option to "boot" didn't cause the kernel to ask me for a root partition as the manual says it should. Please respond to me by email. Thanks! -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Eric Hanchrow -- erich@microsoft.com pgp fingerprint: c6 c7 de 59 1d e3 95 44 bc 40 25 61 af b1 90 b7 "The sort of person who routinely uses phrases like `incompletely socialized' usually thinks hackers are. Hackers regard such people with contempt when they notice them at all." -- Jargon File 3.3.1