Dual boot WinXP and FreeBSD 5.3
Tom Connolly
dual boot with the existing Windows XP system (separate HD). Can I just
simply go through the FreeBSD install and have it install the FreeBSD
boot manager/loader on the XP drive? I can't risk doing any damage to
the XP system as it has a thermal analyzer program on it that won't run
on FreeBSD (otherwise I would have no use for XP at all). I would like
to know if there are any "gotchas" or anything that could be a problem.
I would really like to hear comments from anyone who has set up such a
system.
Thanks in advance,
Tom
Steven Friedrich
> freebsd-...@freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to
> "freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org"
I recommend that you spend money and get some mobile racks, which will allow
you to remove the Windows drive and slip in another. I like the Vantec
racks, which are $35 for the whole thing or $30 for just the removable part
(I recomment buying the whole thing each time unless you're going to save
hundreds of dollars because you're ordering so many).
I used to partition drives up and install several OSes on a couple drives. I
got tired of Microsoft finding my other OSes and trashing them. Now they
can't!
Jud
You can use the FreeBSD bootloader to boot both OSs (I believe you must
install it on both drives). Another nice (and easy) free
bootloader/manager that I use to boot Win2K, FreeBSD, DragonFly and the
occasional Linux is GAG - <URL: http://gag.sourceforge.net/>.
This thermal analyzer program has no counterpart/substitute in FreeBSD?
Jud
Scott Bennett
>Hello list. I wish to put FreeBSD 5.3 on a new hard drive and have it
>dual boot with the existing Windows XP system (separate HD). Can I just
>simply go through the FreeBSD install and have it install the FreeBSD
>boot manager/loader on the XP drive? I can't risk doing any damage to
>the XP system as it has a thermal analyzer program on it that won't run
>on FreeBSD (otherwise I would have no use for XP at all). I would like
>to know if there are any "gotchas" or anything that could be a problem.
>I would really like to hear comments from anyone who has set up such a
>system.
>
What hardware would this be on? For example, if it's a Dell computer
as shipped by Dell, then, yes, there is a potential problem. Dell ships
its computers with three primary partitions already allocated and populated:
a (hidden) service partition, the Windows XP partition, and the Windows XP
system restore data partition (also hidden). That leaves only one unused
primary partition entry in the Master Boot Record. If you use Norton Ghost
to back up your Windows XP system, you will discover that Norton Ghost
has an undocumented misfeature that will appear when you allocate that last
unused partition table entry to FreeBSD (or to anything else). Norton Ghost
expects to find an unused primary partition entry for its own temporary use
while doing a full backup. (Grid only knows why it would need *any* kind
of partition table entry, but it refuses to do the backup if it doesn't
have one available.) The Windows XP system restore partition can be changed
from a primary partition to a logical partition, and Windows XP doesn't
appear to care. However, creation of a logical partition entry chain ties
up one primary partition entry in the MBR, so converting the system restore
partition alone doesn't buy you anything. If you then also convert the Dell
service partition to a logical partition, Windows XP will no longer complete
its startup procedure because there is at least one module (HAL.DLL) that its
boot/startup routines will try to load from the service partition, which the
startup routines aren't smart enough to find if it's a logical partition.
Dell's technical support people eventually told me that the only way around
that problem was to wipe out Windows XP and reload it from the CDROMs that
they shipped with the computer. But if you do that, you may then have
trouble reinstalling Norton Ghost and getting it to accept the fact that you
do already have a paid-for license. Instead it may insist that it is just
a demo version due to expire soon and reject the license number when you
attempt to reregister it. Symantec, of course, is unreachable if you try to
get them to support the license and software.
But perhaps you do your backups a better way.
Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
**********************************************************************
* Internet: bennett at cs.niu.edu *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
* "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good *
* objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments *
* -- a standing army." *
* -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790 *
**********************************************************************
Tom Connolly
I have not been able to find one but I would love to be proven wrong
here.
The program is called SIMBA and it works with an AutoCad engine. Any
ideas?
Thanks for the info Jud.
Tom
Tom Connolly
> Yes go ahead and install the BSD boot loader on the XP drive.
> It will work fine. BTW I haven't come across many "Sorry does not
work under FreeBSD" messages.
> Could you tell us something about that thermal monitor? I think there
must be some compatible port.
Yes the program is called SIMBA. It works with an AutoCAD backend.
It's a thermal analyzer program used for modeling heat transfer through
objects. If you, or anyone, knows of a compatible port I would love to
hear about it but I did some research and am pretty sure it won't work
under FreeBSD. I would LOVE to be proven wrong here!
>
> Regards
> S.
Thanks for the information,
Thomas
Tom Connolly
http://www.crtech.com/sinda.html
Thanks,
Tom
Tom Connolly
> A bit of Googling found that SIMBA is based on Matlab and Simulink
> from Mathworks. Here's an email re getting those programs to work on
> FreeBSD
Terribly sorry Jud. The program is actually called SINDA not SIMBA.
SINDA/Fluint to be exact. Sorry for the typo.
Any ideas on this?
Thanks again,
Tom
Luke
I tried this a few months ago using only the FreeBSD boot manager, and
couldn't get anywhere with it.
The solution I ultimately ended up using was GRUB.
/usr/ports/sysutils/grub
It's very complicated, or at least I thought so, but it's very flexible
too.
On my system, I've got:
Primary Master IDE = Windows XP drive
Primary Slave IDE = none
Secondary Master IDE = CD drive
Secondary Slave IDE = FreeBSD
And some raid drives that don't really enter into this...
WinXP is on the primary master drive because WinXP just isn't happy being
mounted anywhere else... You come up with drives like E instead of C and
all kinds of other nonstandard stuff, so it's simpler just to play along
with Microsoft and make it your primary master drive.
The arrangement of the other drives just happened to be what was most
convenient for the cabling.
This is the configuration file I created to get this to work with GRUB
-----
default 0
timeout 6
title FreeBSD
color red/black light-red/black
root (hd0,0,a)
kernel /boot/loader
title WinXP
color blue/black light-blue/black
map (hd0) (hd2)
map (hd2) (hd0)
root (hd2,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
------
The "default 0" and "timeout 6" means it boots FreeBSD by default after 6
seconds.
The next two blocks describe the two menu choices I get.
The menu "color" settings, as it turns out, don't work. I'm not sure why.
I haven't cared enough to investigate further.
The "root" and "map" directives tell GRUB where to find the partition I
want to boot. GRUB has its own mysterious way of counting the drives. It
counts my drives backwards from what I think it should, so that's why I
have to do all the mapping and why FreeBSD boots off hd0 instead of hd2 or
hd3.
The "kernel" directive in the FreeBSD section and the
"makeactive","chainloader +1" directives in the WinXP section tell the
machine where to continue the booting process.
All of this is described in the documentation.
Since the machine boots from the WinXP disk by default since it's the
primary master and has a bootable partition on it, I had to install
GRUB onto that disk. GRUB made a bootable floppy that took care of that
for me. I still keep that floppy around just in case I ever need to
reinstall Windows.
Hopefully you'll find a much simpler solution than I did. I just wanted
to say that I'm really impressed with GRUB, and that with enough
persistence and study, I think it could make just about any dual-boot
configuration work.
Jud
> And here is the link:
>
> http://www.crtech.com/sinda.html
I don't see anything in ports. Googling turned up some FEA stuff with
what appeared to be fairly nice CAD backends that work on Linux and
(occasionally) Unix, a couple with (at least advertised) heat and fluid
transfer analysis capabilities, but (1) getting these to run on FreeBSD
might involve custom work, and (2) FEA with heat/fluid transfer analysis
and CAD backend still doesn't necessarily exactly equal what you need.
Jud
Scott Bennett
>Scott Bennett wrote:
>> Tom Connolly <to...@cqg.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello list. I wish to put FreeBSD 5.3 on a new hard drive and have
>>> it dual boot with the existing Windows XP system (separate HD). Can
>>> I just simply go through the FreeBSD install and have it install the
>>> FreeBSD boot manager/loader on the XP drive? I can't risk doing any
>>> damage to the XP system as it has a thermal analyzer program on it
>>> that won't run on FreeBSD (otherwise I would have no use for XP at
>>> all). I would like to know if there are any "gotchas" or anything
>>> that could be a problem. I would really like to hear comments from
>>> anyone who has set up such a system.
>>>
>> computer as shipped by Dell, then, yes, there is a potential
>> problem.
>
>reformatted the disk using a clean Windows XP Pro disk (not from Dell).
>Will this solve this "hidden" partition thing as I have removed the old
>partitions during the reformat process?
Sure, but if you're not running some poorly designed piece of software
like Norton Ghost, it probably isn't an issue anyway because you only need
one partition for FreeBSD in addition to the three partitions Dell shipped.
You wouldn't have any partition table entries left over, but you would have
enough.
>I have wiped out the system but with my own copy of WinXP Pro. Will
>this work?
I don't know why not, but, as noted above, it shouldn't have
mattered anyway for what you have and want to do.
>
>> But
>> if you do that, you may then have trouble reinstalling Norton Ghost
>> and getting it to accept the fact that you do already have a paid-for
>> license.
>
>Don't have Norton Ghost so I'm not too worried about that.
So you probably don't need to keep a spare primary partition table
entry around unused.
Best of luck to you!
Tom Connolly
Thanks for checking into it Jud. I think I'll just continue running it
under windows and work on the dual boot thing.
Tom
Adam Fabian
> Hello list. I wish to put FreeBSD 5.3 on a new hard drive and have it
> dual boot with the existing Windows XP system (separate HD). Can I just
> simply go through the FreeBSD install and have it install the FreeBSD
> boot manager/loader on the XP drive? I can't risk doing any damage to
> the XP system as it has a thermal analyzer program on it that won't run
If you try to set up dual-boot, you're risking doing damage to the XP
system. In any case whatsoever. If you're inexperienced, the risk is
actually pretty high.
> on FreeBSD (otherwise I would have no use for XP at all). I would like
> to know if there are any "gotchas" or anything that could be a problem.
> I would really like to hear comments from anyone who has set up such a
> system.
Utilities from the DOS/Windows world are frequently stupid and make
stupid assumptions, like you only have one big, primary partition and
you run one operating system, and might be hazy about telling you
which partition and disk they're going to act on. (And it will always
be the one you don't want it to.) Even if you're using UNIX
utilities, 0-9 and a-z are very susceptible to one letter off typos;
if you don't have a full disk image, or are not willing to reinstall
everything on the system from scratch, do not even try to make a
dual-boot system. The whole process is a "gotcha"; the architecture
wasn't designed with dual-boot in mind.
I found the GAG boot manager to be pretty easy and intuitive.
--
Adam Fabian (afa...@austin.rr.com)
Tom Connolly
> http://ipucu.enderunix.org/view.php?id=70&lang=en
>
Hey great info on this. One question, he has assumed that we are going
to put WinXP and FreeBSD on the same drive so in his setup config he
has:
#this is the name that will appear on the boot menu title FreeBSD
#this is where the root (/) system is installed #master disk 1,
partition 2 slice a
root (hd0,1,a)
#how to boot the above system
kernel /boot/loader
title Windows XP root (hd0,0)
Would I change that to:
#this is the name that will appear on the boot menu title FreeBSD
#this is where the root (/) system is installed #master disk 1,
partition 2 slice a
root (hd1,0,a)
#how to boot the above system
kernel /boot/loader
title Windows XP root (hd0,0)
Thanks for the info.
Tom
