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From: erich@uruk.org (Erich Boleyn)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.setup,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Broken multi-boot install
Date: 27 Jun 1996 17:33:32 -0700
Organization: RainDrop Laboratories/Agora(sm)
Lines: 85
Sender: erich@uruk.org
Message-ID: <ue20j0py1v.fsf@uruk.org>
References: <46f7t4$ms6@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: uruk.org
In-reply-to: cander@cimsim.IEOR.Berkeley.EDU's message of 23 Oct 1995 05:06:44
GMT
X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.1
In article <46f7t4$ms6@agate.berkeley.edu> cander@cimsim.IEOR.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Anderson) writes:
I'm trying to install Windows 3.5.1 (from the development platform
CD's) on a PC that has been running DOS and FreeBSD, and now it won't
boot DOS or complete the NT install.
Before: I was running DOS and BSD on a 1.8 GB SCSI disk. I had ~350MB
for DOS and ~500 for BSD - the rest was unallocated. I've been using
the FreeBSD boot manager to pick and choose between the two.
That's weird. I've done several DOS/NT and FreeBSD shared installs. It
has always worked pretty well (it very well might have been a different
boot manager... like OS-BS).
During: The NT setup program copied the NT files onto my C: drive and
asked for a reboot. After that the boot manager prompt gave me the
usual choice of DOS and BSD. When I choose DOS, nothing happens - the
system is dead. I can boot BSD fine, and I can boot DOS from a floppy
and see my C: drive, and it seems fine.
I'm not entirely sure why it doesn't work. A good question to ask here is
if right after NT asks you to reboot off of the hard drive, can you boot
a floppy and set the DOS/NT partition as active? (I don't remember if the
NT boot code uses the active partition marker or not)
You might also try installing NT with no boot manager (i.e. run
"FDISK /MBR" from DOS... it will remove the boot manager, but otherwise
leave your disk untouched... and yes, you can still boot from a FreeBSD
floppy onto your FreeBSD partition from there, or from GRUB as mentioned
below).
There are also some known cases where the NT install gets wedged. Calling
Microsoft if you're desparate enough might be the idea here.
After: I've since retried the NT installation onto a new DOS partition,
but that didn't work either - same symptoms. BTW< The new DOS partion
fits in the first 1024 cylinders, which is a whole 'nother story :-(.
I've tried the DOS fdisk to re-activate the primary DOS partion, but
that didn't help either.
My guess: based on stuff in the FreeBSD group, the BSD fdisk or boot
loader has tweaked some stuff in the MBR that NT doesn't like. If
could install a vanilla DOS boot loader (without support for BSD), and
complete the NT installation, I'm hopeful that I could restore the BSD
boot manager or tweak the NT loader to boot BSD. The problem is I
don't know didly about DOS and fear that the only way to install a boot
manager is from format.
Any silver bullets out there?
I'm not entirely sure of a silver bullet here... but here's what's
supposed to happen:
1) DOS normally is booting from the first sector of the partition (your
boot manager is in the MBR, so it obviously wasn't overwritten).
2) When NT is installing, it takes the first sector of the partition,
places it into a file called BOOTSECT.DOS in the root directory, then
places it's own boot sector there.
3) NT's boot sector should be loading in the "NTLDR" program.
If you want make your C: partition into a bootable DOS partition again,
from FreeBSD type:
dd if=BOOTSECT.DOS of=<partition_device> bs=512 count=1
Oh, yes. I have a flexible bootloader I've written which is compatible
with FreeBSD (plus NetBSD and Linux), reads FAT and BSD FFS filesystems,
and gives command-line control over options such as booting using the
"BOOTSECT.DOS" file for chain-loading. It is available from:
http://www.uruk.org/grub/
--
Erich Stefan Boleyn \_ E-mail (preferred): <erich@uruk.org>
Mad Genius wanna-be, CyberMuffin \__ (finger me for other stats)
Web: http://www.uruk.org/~erich/ Motto: "I'll live forever or die trying"
This is my home system, so I'm speaking only for myself, not for Intel.