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Date:      Mon, 14 Jun 1999 17:02:05 +0100
From:      Clem.Dye@wdr.com
To:        bdodson@beowulf.utmb.edu, Clem.Dye@wdr.com
Cc:        as_hombert@ibm.net, Questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   RE: RE: RE: Booting FreeBSD with Win NT
Message-ID:  <H000008201ce8e0c@MHS>

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Agreed. I wasn't planning to start a flame war - that's totally 
unproductive and certainly not my intention. Apologies if I gave that 
impression.

Having researched what was available (including the assembler patch 
etc.), it didn't seem worthwhile to fully discuss the NT boot 
loader's capabilities - with hindsight, that may have been more 
useful in qualifying my statements.

As a FreeBSD newbie, I based my comments on what I understood and 
what I could actually get working, using 3.1. Your post mentions 3.2, 
hence my suggestion for clarity. If you're comfortable with FreeBSD, 
then the bits in your mail are indeed sufficient. However, for us 
newbies, sometimes spelling things out helps enormously. 

Regards


Clem

-----Original Message-----
From: bdodson 
Sent: 14 June 1999 16:09
To: Dye, Clem
Cc: bdodson; as.hombert; Questions
Subject: RE: RE: Booting FreeBSD with Win NT


Clem.Dye@wdr.com writes:
 > No, not 'wrongo'. Based on my experiences and other people's 
previous 
 > comments about NT/FreeBSD dual-boot, I arrived at a working 
 > configuration. That it's seemingly possible to use the NT boot 
loader 
 > to boot FreeBSD from a disk other than the first (regardless of 
 > controller order) without too much kludging around is indeed 
welcome 
 > news. The FreeBSD documentation is clear on what can & can't be 
done, 
 > but would now seem to be incomplete. Might I suggest that you 
fully 
 > document your solution so that other users can benefit?
 > 

What more docs do you want?  I gave the contents of all pertinent
text files and my hardware configuration.  If you want to submit
a send-pr to update the docs to be more complete, be my guest.
Or, preferably, someone with access to a range of hardware could
determine how general the described solution really is (in the
FBSD way of doing things this should happen before it goes into
the general docs).  For one thing, the way I described doing
things depends on using a version of FBSD with the "new" 3-stage
boot system.  And that was my reason for pointing out that your
statement was, ummm...., "incomplete in its scope" (see below).
This is not worth a flame war, by the way.

 > 
 > Clem
 > 
 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: bdodson 
 > Sent: 14 June 1999 15:12
 > To: Dye, Clem
 > Cc: bdodson; as.hombert; Questions
 > Subject: RE: Booting FreeBSD with Win NT
 > 
 > 
 > 

[elided]

 > Clem.Dye@wdr.com writes:
 >  > It does work, but you'll have to re-jig your configuration. 

This is the "wrongo" part:

 > FreeBSD 
   -------
 >  > has to reside somewhere on the first drive in order for you
      -----------------------------------------------------------
to be 
-----

 >  > able to use the NT loader. My test box currently has 
      -------------------------
 >  > NT4/NT5/DOS/FreeBSD 3.1 all driven from the NT loader. I have a 
 > small 
 >  > DOS partition on the first drive, the remainder being given 
over 
 > to 
 >  > FreeBSD. NT4/5 resides on my second drive. 
 >  > 

This part is also not correct, but then you did not make a
definitive statement.

 >  > The problem is/seems that the NT boot loader will only boot 
non-M$ 
 >  > o/ses from the first drive on a multi-disk system. 
 >  > 

A more correct way to say it might be that the NT boot loader
must boot an executable file which resides on the first drive on
a multi-disk system.  This can be a boot loader (and, in the NT
way of doing things, _should_ be a boot loader), and whether or
not a non-Microsoft OS can be booted on a drive other than the
first depends on the capability of that boot loader.  By the way,
the new 3-stage boot is _much_ more flexible in doing this sort
of thing (which is part of the reason it was written).  The 2.2.x
boot loader can be coerced into working, but you have to patch
the boot loader assembler source and recompile it.  Not at all a
general solution to be presented in the general documentation or
on this list.  And, in any case, I've long since forgotten the
details.

 >  > The details detailed in the handbook are correct if you use a 
disk 
 >  > layout similar to that which I describe above.
 >  > 

No doubt.

 >  > HTH.
 >  > 
 >  > 
 >  > Clem
 >  > 
 >  > -----Original Message-----
 >  > From: as.hombert 
 >  > Sent: 13 June 1999 09:00
 >  > To: Questions
 >  > Cc: as.hombert
 >  > Subject: Booting FreeBSD with Win NT
 >  > 
 >  > 

[more stuff elided]

-- 
M. L. Dodson                                bdodson@scms.utmb.edu
409-772-2178                                FAX: 409-772-1790


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