Re: 5.1-RELEASE & Windows XP dual-boot issues

On Tue, 2003-07-01 at 01:34, Jud wrote:
> >> > > to boot FreeBSD with no problems at all, but when I went to boot up
> >> > > Windows, I received the dreaded 'NTLDR missing' message.
> [grub stuff snipped]
> 
> A few comments about the thread so far:
> 
> ISTM the easiest thing for you to do is install booteasy on *both* drives.  
> That should work fine.

I don't think that will make any difference in my case.  Just a recap:

I have two physical drives (ad0, ad1).  XP is on ad0 (the first drive)
and FreeBSD is on ad1 (the second drive).  I have been using booteasy on
the *first* drive with a regular mbr on the second and that worked just
fine until I did a fresh install of 5.1.  What I'm trying to get at is
how best to re-install windows (or work around the 'NTLDR is missing'
message) *without* then rendering my FreeBSD install unbootable because
we all know that Windows overwrites the mbr by default because it thinks
it's supreme ruler of the universe.

> I think Jesse Guardini's suggestion works when Win and FreeBSD are on the 
> same drive.  You can still use the NT/2K/XP bootloader when the OSs are on 
> different drives, but problem is, I could never figure out exactly what the 
> FAQ was trying to tell me on that score.  You might take a look at the FAQ 
> and see if it's clear to you.

The FAQ's do seem to assume that the OS's are on the same physical drive
which doesn't actually help me much.

> Grub is a fine bootloader, but I've heard it doesn't like UFS2 filesystems, 
> and I've also heard 5.1 uses UFS2 for / as default, causing grub not to 
> work.  Is your / UFS1 or UFS2?  (Or to ask another way, did you upgrade via 
> cvsup (resulting in UFS1 root) or install 5.1 from scratch (resulting in 
> UFS2 root)?  If you can use grub and decide you'd like to do so, the 
> "rootnoverify" line is no longer necessary with Win2K.

5.1 does indeed use UFS2 by default and, hence, my filesystem is UFS2. 
I did a fresh install of 5.1, not a source upgrade.  Again, what I'm
really looking for are suggestions as to how to go about reinstalling
Windows (which will wipe out booteasy on the first drive, thus making
the second drive - FreeBSD - unbootable) and then installing a boot
manager that will pick up the FreeBSD install on the second drive and
allow me to boot it or Windows.

> You may want to have a look at GAG, which is freeware, open source, 
> graphical, and rather automagic.  Worked "out of the box" on my setup, 
> which involves dual booting Win2K and FreeBSD from a RAID0 array.

Thanks, I will take a look at it.

-Scott