The terms 'grub2', 'devuan' and 'stanza' are not familiar to me, and sound like features or Distros in Linux. I don't recommend using the Linux Grub Menu with FreeBSD. BSD needs to provide its own Menu.
Hi Michael,Hi Terry, I am interested in the same thing and used the answers from HL1234 to get further.
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If you take time and decide to go forth with this I will be glad to follow your updates in this thread.
My Windows version is XP which may respond differently from 7.
You need to consider this problem from the perspective of an 'average' computer user... I am certainly sure that they will not postpone the release date only to enable FreeBSD's Boot Manager to boot other systems apart from FreeBSD when according to handbook it already should be possible + that there are fixes for this issue in the forum. I would say that, that would not be their foucus, but I can be wrong.
-- not 'advanced' users. Manually setting up a Boot Menu is way too complicated for the average user. I personally want to see FreeBSD become much more widespread so that Software Developers will write Software for BSD. This necessitates that the BSD installation process be completely idiot-proof. It's not acceptable from a programming perspective that installing FreeBSD would ruin the existing Windows installation. The BSD Programmers should have tested out the Installer Partition Tool with different Windows versions to verify whether or not it creates a Boot Menu. If it doesn't work with Windows XP then there should be a warning message in the Installer. This problem with XP should have been discovered by BSD Programmers fifteen years ago.Thanks for this information. This is undoubtedly my problem. Over-writing the second Sector (1) would corrupt a major Windows System File, and this problem would be irreparable. I'll have to go with installing BSD on my slave Hard Drive which I can select from the BIOS Boot Menu.
I think I figured out a way to get around this problem of BSD using the Second Sector for the Boot Menu. When installing Windows, you can create 3 Partitions with the First being a Dummy Partition of the smallest size possible (a few Kilobytes), the Second being for the Windows Installation, and the Third unformatted space for the FreeBSD installation. When the BSD installer erases the Second Sector it will only impact the Dummy Partition -- leaving the Windows Partition unaffected. However, I am reluctant to now try this out because it would take about four hours to reformat and reinstall Windows and BSD. If Michael or someone tries this out please let us know the results.
There has been no definitive suggestion for safely installing FreeBSD with Windows XP. The suggestions haven't been determined absolutely safe. There was a suggestion for using 'foreign' OS Boot Menus like Linux's GRUB. However, I'm trying to determine a safe process within BSD. Using a foreign Menu is rather tacky.
I think the problem with this suggestion would be that the Second Sector (1) is already used by Windows, and there's no way to undo that once Windows is installed.
Well, this method doesn't work because the 'FreeBSD Installer / Partition Editor' is somehow deficient rendering it incapable of recognizing the unused Disk space. I reformatted and reinstalled Windows XP (after Windows screwed-up on me again) on a 12GB 2nd Partition on my 19.5GB Hard Drive. The 1st Windows Partition is just the 8MB minimum. The following summary is what the 'FreeBSD Installer / Partition Editor' provided:
I tried creating this Dummy Partition because FreeBSD was screwing-up my Windows installation when it was the 1st Partition, and so I thought this would avoid the problem caused by a 2-Sector Boot Loader mentioned in Post #13. I have no idea why Windows XP created that EBR. I have 7.5GB for the BSD installation which allows for 3GB for 'swap'. I intend to use a second 40GB Slave Hard Drive for storing all my personal files (Windows and BSD) to protect them against OS failures.
I tried this, and it doesn't work. The Partition Editor will only allow you to create the BSD Partition at 'ada0'.
I will try this for about the sixth time once someone in the know can tell me how to have BSD create a Boot Menu like Linux. Nobody has yet provided an answer to this within FreeBSD. That 'boot0cfg' Command appears to only change the Partition which boots up. It does not seem to create a Boot Menu like Linux. Also, if the BSD Boot Loader uses two Sectors instead of one, then there is no way for BSD to be installed on a Partition with Windows because it will irreparably screw-up Windows.
For starters I wish to switch to BSD for all of my Internet work since the Windows XP Firewall is no longer safe. My Windows system was hacked and corrupted while on the Internet last December which is what led me to search for another OS. I had installed Linux Debian in February which successfully set up a working Boot Menu -- the first time, but when running Debian it screwed up my older Monitor which led me to try out FreeBSD. I'm afraid that it's looking like FreeBSD might turn into a dud as well.
No this does not mean that it's working. This is exactly the problem with the FreeBSD Installer: it corrupts the Windows installation rendering it unbootable. I, and every other user who wishes to use a Windows / BSD Partition Drive, expect BSD to provide a Boot Menu to select either Windows or BSD -- just as Linux does! Absolutely nobody here has yet confirmed as to whether or not FreeBSD can provide such a Boot Menu. It seems not.
Yes this is the proper Thread to use for this topic of the BSD Installer screwing-up the Windows installation. The Forum administrators don't like duplicate Threads on a single topic / problem.
Are you certain this is accurate? According to 'dririan' on his Blog "Using boot0cfg on FreeBSD to configure the bootloader / July 14, 2012" (https://dririan.com/2012/07/using-boot0cfg/); FreeBSD's boot0 "fits entirely in the MBR’s boot code area (which is 440 bytes)". Doesn't this mean that the BSD Boot Code fits entirely within Sector 0?
