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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.hawaii.edu!news.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news1.erols.com!newsmaster@erols.com From: Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: How to reinstall the boot manager? Date: Sun, 09 Jun 1996 11:28:13 -0700 Organization: Erols Internet Services Lines: 60 Message-ID: <31BB17BD.4342@www.play-hookey.com> References: <uohmt4hew.fsf@erich4.microsoft.com> Reply-To: kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com NNTP-Posting-Host: kenjb05.play-hookey.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b4 (Win16; I) Eric Hanchrow wrote: > > 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. > I tried to respond by e-mail but my note was returned as undeliverable. You might check your "reply-to" address, which can be different from your "From" address. Anyway, Win95 is an absolute pig in many ways. In this context, it wants to hog the entire drive to itself if it can, including writing some of its own garbage into the Master Boot Record. To put Boot Manager back in, use the Boot floppy and select Novice install. Select wd0 as your destination drive. Without making any changes in your partition info, tell FreeBSD to write the partition info at once. Accept the Boot Mgr option and Boot Manager will be installed. At this point, remove the floppy and reboot normally. Boot Manager should now be operational. Ken