From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jun 10 9: 8:39 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mta01-svc.server.ntlworld.com (mta01-svc.ntlworld.com [62.253.162.41]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED80637B812 for ; Sat, 10 Jun 2000 09:08:34 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org) Received: from parish.my.domain ([62.253.86.3]) by mta01-svc.server.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.02.27 201-229-119-110) with ESMTP id <20000610160827.PFSX381.mta01-svc.server.ntlworld.com@parish.my.domain>; Sat, 10 Jun 2000 17:08:27 +0100 Received: (from mark@localhost) by parish.my.domain (8.9.3/8.9.3) id RAA03445; Sat, 10 Jun 2000 17:08:05 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from mark) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 17:08:02 +0100 From: Mark Ovens To: "Jasper O'Malley" Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: REVISED: Active partition problems with FreeBSD 4.0/NT dual-boot Message-ID: <20000610170801.F233@parish> References: <20000610022218.C232@parish> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0.1i In-Reply-To: ; from jooji@nickelkid.com on Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 11:53:44AM -0400 Organization: Total lack of Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sat, Jun 10, 2000 at 11:53:44AM -0400, Jasper O'Malley wrote: > On Sat, 10 Jun 2000, Mark Ovens wrote: > > > On Fri, Jun 09, 2000 at 03:16:06PM -0400, Jasper O'Malley wrote: > > > > > I didn't boot off C:\BOOTSECT.BSD that time, I "hit F5, then hit F1" to > > > boot back into FreeBSD (i.e. I did it entirely through the FreeBSD boot > > > loader process). In fact, C:\BOOTSECT.BSD disappeared with everything else > > > on the original NTFS partition when the partition table was overwritten ;) > > > > Yes, but those (F1... F5....) messages come from the FreeBSD loader > > (boot0). NT obviously doesn't rewrite the MBR when installing. > > Nope, sure doesn't. But the thing is that, by this point, boot0 had > already taken residence in the MBR of da0, so I wasn't dealing with a > situation where I'd trashed the partition table again. > So when you re-installed NT it wrote a new PT to the MBR, which is actually boot0? > > > It did it again because the "active" flag in da0s1's partition > > > table entry was cleared when I booted into FreeBSD. Upon reboot, > > > the BIOS--seeing that no partitions were marked active on the > > > lowest numbered BIOS drive-- threw out the error message and > > > stopped the boot again. It's a bug, but it's not uncommon, from > > > what I've seen in the freebsd-questions archive and elsewhere. > > This is beginning to sound familiar. When I used to install from CD (I've been using cvsup for over a year now) I always used the "no boot manager" option but when I rebooted after completing the install I found that *no* partitions were set active and had to use Partition Magic to turn one on. > > The BIOS can't boot from anything other than the first drive, that's > > what boot managers are all about. > > Right, but normally the BIOS doesn't bother checking for active partition > on the first drive. Ordinarily, the BIOS just cares that there *is* a > first disk, and hands control over to the MBR on the first disk, and the > program in the MBR is normally what cares about active partitions and > such. Because my particular BIOS is looking for an active partition > before the MBR (in this case, boot0) gets control, it's not letting me > boot unless I manually use fdisk to set the NTFS partition active (even if > I just want to boot into FreeBSD). > I think that's why we've both seen the same "no active partition" problem. I too have an Award BIOS (4.51PGM) on a Gigabyte m/b (GA-586TX3). The term "brain-dead BIOS" in your original post seems to be spot-on :) > > Sorry for the problems [the FAQ] has caused but it was done in all good > > faith. > > I understand :) It's really not a problem, I didn't have anything > important on my NT partition. Other may people may, however, so it might > be wise to remove the instruction altogether until the new wording is > completed. > I've already submitted a PR with the new wording, docs/19174. > Right now, my problem isn't really that boot0 is trashing my partition > table anymore, it's that it's clearing the active flag on my NTFS > partition when I boot into FreeBSD. > The only thing I can suggest now, other than getting a new m/b, is to put / on da0 and /usr, /var, and swap on da1. This is the way mine is setup and it works fine. > Cheers, > Mick > -- Want a lean, mean, computing machine? Get rid of that excess FAT - install FreeBSD ________________________________________________________________ FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org My Webpage http://ukug.uk.freebsd.org/~mark/ mailto:mark@ukug.uk.freebsd.org http://www.radan.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message