123516SjkhBoot Manager Selection: 223516Sjkh----------------------- 323516Sjkh 423516SjkhIf you wish to switch between multiple operating systems on your 523516Sjkhmachine, or if you are trying to install FreeBSD on a drive other than 623516Sjkhyour 1st drive, then you must install a boot manager. In the case 723516Sjkhwhere you wish to boot off an alternate drive, it should also be noted 823516Sjkhthat you still need to install a boot manager on the FIRST drive! 923516SjkhEven if you do not intend to create a FreeBSD partition on that drive 1023516Sjkh(e.g. it's being wholly used by something else), the boot manager 1123516Sjkhstill needs to reside on the first disk in order to function as a 1223516Sjkh"redirector" for the boot process. 1323516Sjkh 1423516SjkhTo do this, simply select your 1st drive in the drive selection menu 1523516Sjkhand when the partition editor comes up, don't make any changes - just 1623516Sjkh(Q)uit. At the boot manager menu which follows, select the first 1723516Sjkhoption (install a boot manager) and then proceed to setup the other 1823516Sjkhdrive(s) for FreeBSD as normal. 1923516Sjkh 2023516SjkhIt should also be noted that "operating systems" such as Windows 95 2123516Sjkhwill completely overwrite your boot manager without so much as a 2223516Sjkhpolite "may I please destroy your boot manager?" prompt if you make 2323516Sjkhthe mistake of installing them second. If this happens to you after 2423516SjkhFreeBSD is already installed, all is not lost! Simply revisit your 2523516SjkhFreeBSD distribution directory and look for a tools/ subdirectory, in 2623516Sjkhwhich you'll find "bootinst.exe" and "boot.bin". To reinstall, simply 2723516Sjkhsay "bootinst boot.bin" while in the tools/ subdirectory. 2823516Sjkh 2923516Sjkh 3023516SjkhIf you see the boot manager displaying ``F?'' when you try to come up 3123516Sjkhfor the first time and it refuses to change, no matter how often you 3223516Sjkhwhap on the function key assigned to FreeBSD, then you have a geometry 3323516Sjkhmismatch problem and you should read the next section for important 3423516Sjkhinformation on how to prevent that exact problem from happening! 3523516Sjkh 3623516Sjkh 3723516SjkhGeometry Translation / Sharing the disk(s) with another OS: 3823516Sjkh---------------------------------------------------------- 3923516Sjkh 4010882SpeterIf you are going to actually install some portion of FreeBSD on a 4110882Speterdrive then PLEASE BE VERY CERTAIN that the Geometry reported in the 4212661SpeterPartition Editor is the correct one for your drive and controller 4312661Spetercombination! 4410882Speter 4510882SpeterIDE drives often have a certain geometry set during the PC BIOS setup, 4623516Sjkhor (in the case of larger IDE drives) have their geometry "translated" 4710882Speterby either the IDE controller or a special boot-sector translation 4810882Speterutility such as that by OnTrack Systems. In these cases, knowing the 4910882Spetercorrect geometry gets even more complicated as it's not something you 5010882Spetercan easily tell by looking at the drive or the PC BIOS setup. The 5110882Speterbest way of verifying that your geometry is being correctly calculated 5210882Speterin such situations is to boot DOS (from the hard disk, not a floppy!) 5310882Speterand run the ``pfdisk'' utility provided in the tools/ subdirectory of 5410882Speterthe FreeBSD CDROM or FTP site. It will report the geometry that DOS 5510882Spetersees, which is generally the correct one. 5610882Speter 5710882SpeterIf you have no DOS partition sharing the disk at all, then you may 5810882Speterfind that you have better luck with Geometry detection if you create a 5910882Spetervery small DOS partition first, before installing FreeBSD. Once 6010882SpeterFreeBSD is installed you can always delete it again if you need the 6110882Speterspace. 6210882Speter 6323516SjkhIt's actually not a bad idea (believe it or not) to have a small 6423516Sjkhbootable DOS partition on your FreeBSD machine anyway: Should the 6523516Sjkhmachine become unstable or exhibit strange behavior at some point in 6623516Sjkhthe future (which is not uncommon behavior for PC hardware!) you can 6723516Sjkhthen at least use DOS for installing and running one of the 6823516Sjkhcommercially available system diagnostic utilities. 6923516Sjkh 7023516SjkhIMPORTANT NOTE: 7123516Sjkh 7223516SjkhAny root partition you try to boot from must also reside below the 7323516Sjkh1024th cylinder. If you're using a translated geometry then this is 7423516Sjkhprobably not a problem, but if you are using a native disk geometry 7523516Sjkhwhich exceeds 1024 cylinders then you could have a failure to boot if 7623516Sjkhyou end up installing a root partition (or even just the kernel file 7723516Sjkhin a root partition) out past cylinder 1024. If you are trying to 7823516Sjkhshare your first disk with FreeBSD and another OS which was installed 7923516Sjkhpreviously, you are particularly susceptible to this problem and should 8023516Sjkhcheck your disk addresses very carefully. 8123516Sjkh 8223516SjkhIf you find that you have insufficient space below cylinder 1024 to 8323516Sjkhmake a root partition for FreeBSD (and again, this ONLY applies to the 8423516Sjkhroot partition - once FreeBSD's kernel is loaded, it doesn't care 8523516Sjkhabout the geometry issues) then you will probably need to install on a 8623516Sjkhcompletely different disk (see the boot manager section above) or 8723516Sjkhresize your existing partitions so that both operating systems can 8823516Sjkhhave boot partitions below cylinder 1024. 8923516Sjkh 9023516SjkhYou may blame IBM for the limitations of a 10 bit cylinder address. 9123516Sjkh"No one will have a disk with more than 1024 cylinders." I'm sure 9223516Sjkhsomeone said. 93