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Date:      Mon, 14 Aug 2000 11:18:29 -0700 (PDT)
From:      John Baldwin <jhb@pike.osd.bsdi.com>
To:        Wilsons <wilson@imt.net>
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: Strip BSD bootsector to DOS file
Message-ID:  <200008141818.LAA05234@pike.osd.bsdi.com>
In-Reply-To: <000001c005b0$75d721b0$0201a8c0@super8> from Wilsons at "Aug 13, 2000 11:28:20 pm"

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Wilsons wrote:
[Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
> Hello,
> 
> I just purchased and installed FreeBSD 4.0 on my system.  I have two SCSI
> drives and have Windows 2000 Pro, Windows 95, and RedHat 6.2 installed on
> the first SCSI disk.  I installed FreeBSD on the second SCSI disk on a 4 Gb
> slice.  I use the Windows 2000 Pro bootloader to select which OS I will run.
> I wanted to see how FreeBSD works and how stable it is.
> 
> None of the OS's can read the FreeBSD slice and partitions.  I am unable to
> figure out how to build a floppy that would boot the installed FreeBSD OS.
> I have read how to build installation floppies but have found no information
> on a boot floppy.  I used a Linux boot floppy with RedHat to strip off the
> bootsector to a file that the NT bootloader understands.
> 
> There must be a way to get the bootsector without using BootEasy.  I
> installed FreeBSD using a STANDARD boot configuration so the FreeBSD
> bootloader wouldn't overwrite the NT bootloader.
> 
> Please let me know the procedure to build a boot floppy for FreeBSD.  I
> could then boot into the installed OS and use the DD command to write the
> bootsector to a file which I could then store on a DOS floppy to transfer to
> the NT boot partition.  Also please let me know if there is a another
> procedure to get at the bootsector to build a file that the NT bootloader
> can understand.
> 
> Thanks for your response
> Dan Wilson
> wilson@imt.net

Boot off of the floppy or the CD-ROM that you used to install.  After
loading a kernel and a mfsroot, it will start a 10 second countdown.  Press
the space key during this countdown to get a loader prompt.  At the prompt,
type 'unload' to unload the kernel and mfsroot you just loaded.  Next, type
'lsdev' to list the drives and their partittions on your system.  You need
to locate the FFS partitition whose name ends in 'a'.  For example:

	disk1s1a   FFS

Set the 'currdev' variable to that partition via the set command.  For
example:

ok set currdev=disk1s1a

Then type 'load /kernel' followed by 'boot' to boot your system.  Once you
are loaded, the only thing you need is the /boot/boot1 file, which is the
first sector of the bootstrap for disks.  Thus, you don't even have to worry
about fancy 'dd' footwork. :)

-- 

John Baldwin <jhb@bsdi.com> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
PGP Key: http://www.cslab.vt.edu/~jobaldwi/pgpkey.asc
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.FreeBSD.org/


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