Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sat, 29 Jun 2002 13:37:28 -0400
From:      Jud <jud@myrealbox.com>
To:        "Brian M. Kincaid" <bmk@adsl-64-174-159-18.dsl.sntc01.pacbell.net>, Miroslav Pendev <shadow@CPE0004761ac738-CM00109515bc65.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Multibooting FBSD, WinME and WinXP -- how do you do it?
Message-ID:  <TS2Y1TZWQ6HGONLTQNHLIL86VPID.3d1df058@sparky>
In-Reply-To: <20020629024652.GA17009@CPE0004761ac738-CM00109515bc65.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
6/28/2002 10:46:52 PM, Miroslav Pendev 
<shadow@CPE0004761ac738-
CM00109515bc65.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com> wrote:

>On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 07:04:02PM -0700, Brian M. Kincaid wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I need some help in setting up a multiboot environment with 
FreeBSD, WinME, 
>> and WinXP. I have separate disks available to be dedicated to each 
operating 
>> system.

>Hi Brian!
>
>I have triple boot Win2000 - Win XP and FreeBSD 4.6 on my work 
system.
>I need XP and 4.6 basicaly for tests and builds :->
>
>I would recommend you to install WinME first - on FAT32 partition,
>then Win XP, on other FAT32 partition and then FreeBSD 4.6 ;-) 
>with the boot manager!!!
>Just be shure to choose to install the boot manager on the booting 
disk.
>
>If you do not need some NTFS special 'crap' you can live with FAT32.
>FAT32 is not good for large drives - but anyways... you can access it 
from
>FreeBSD.

I'm quad-booting W2K, Win98, FreeBSD and QNX.  I prefer NTFS for 
W2K - the stability is excellent.  To move files between FreeBSD and 
W2K I use Win98 as an intermediary.  If that feels too slow and clumsy 
to you, then take Miroslav's advice to use FAT32 for WinXP.

Read MS's knowledge base regarding dual-booting XP and ME - that will 
likely be far more difficult than adding FreeBSD to the mix.

You should be able to use XP's or FreeBSD's bootloader to boot all 
three operating systems.  Regarding how to use XP's bootloader to do 
this, read the FAQ at the FreeBSD web site.  I happen to think grub 
(/usr/ports/sysutils/grub) is a great bootloader.  It's free, and you can 
configure your boot menu just the way you like it.  Read the grub 
documents very carefully first, however.  After all, if you mess up your 
bootloader, you've got an unbootable PC (at least for a while, until you 
recover it - but why not be careful and avoid that?).

If you want a product that just does everything for you, Partition Magic 
with BootMagic is often recommended.  I use and like BootItNG 
(http://www.terabyteunlimited.com), which is smaller, less expensive, and 
IMHO very high quality.  (I'd actually prefer grub, but grub doesn't grok 
my RAID-0 array.)

Jud




To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?TS2Y1TZWQ6HGONLTQNHLIL86VPID.3d1df058>