# Booting Windows 7 and FreeBSD from 2 separate disks



## odin32 (May 22, 2020)

Tell me who knows!! How to double-boot Windows 7 and FreeBSD from 2 separate disks.
Tried to install FreeBSD 12.1 RELEASE amd64.
grub2 in packages and ports no! It was in packages a year ago.
Installed a year ago c grub2 everything worked, where grub2, skype disappeared...
Can who build grub2 from source texts?
Tried to build:   http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-download.html
Not found in ports:   glibc, GNU Make, libdevmapper, FreeType 2
# cd /usr/ports/sysutils/grub2/grub-2.02/
# sh ./configure                                       
# make

```
make: "/usr/ports/sysutils/grub2/grub-2.02/Makefile"
line 12153: Need an operator
```


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## George (May 22, 2020)

If everything else fails, you could just enter the bios and change the boot order.


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## odin32 (May 22, 2020)

I would like to do it correctly, and not climb into the BIOS


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## Minbari (May 22, 2020)

sysutils/grub2 was deprecated last year, it was easier to delete than to maintain it. Did you try EasyBCD? Also you could try to use either FreeBSD Boot Manager or Windows 7 Boot Manager.


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## ralphbsz (May 22, 2020)

You need a boot manager. Start with "man boot0cfg", which is a boot manager that comes with FreeBSD (I don't know whether it only works for MBR or also for GPT, please read the man page). And read the boot section of the handbook.


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## odin32 (May 23, 2020)

1. grub2=no now we have to reinvent the wheel
2. From free programs - EasyBCD working on 100% not met. I didn't check the paid EasyBCD.
3. As for the proposed option https://bastian.rieck.me/blog/posts/2009/windows_boot_manager/
This is the case when Windows 7 FreeBSD is located on the same hard disk.
disk0 (MBR) FreeBSD+(MBR) Windows 7
4. boot0cfg - native FreeBSD boot loader if Windows 7 and FreeBSD are located on separate disks:
disk0 (MBR) Windows 7 + disk1 (MBR) FreeBSD
boot0cfg - loads only Windows 7 (F1), FreeBSD does not load.
If you select disk1 (GPT) FreeBSD - you need to switch to the BIOS.

Remains option number 3. I will try
Has anyone tried multi-loading: disk0 (MBR) Windows 7 + disk1 (grub2) Linux + disk2 FreeBSD


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## zirias@ (May 23, 2020)

This won't give you anything about your concrete question, but _maybe_ something worth considering.

I personally gave up multi-booting a _long_ time ago (like, I think, 15 years or so). In most cases, you have one OS you use most, your "daily driver". In my case, that used to be Linux until a few years ago and is FreeBSD now. So what I do (and IMHO, this is much more comfortable) is to install _only_ this OS and use virtualization for any other OS I want to use occasionally. Maybe you want to give that a try


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## Criosphinx (May 23, 2020)

What kind of computer is it?

Maybe I'm not understanding something because almost all modern PCs let you choose the boot device by pressing a key, in my Gigabyte motherboards its F12, in many laptops its Esc or F10, but there are a lot of variants, you need to check the documentation.


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## wolffnx (May 23, 2020)

or give us more info of the machine
and why multiboot? nothing more
easy that have 2 disks
one with Windows/Linux
and the other whit FreeBSD
and choose which want to start at boottime presing a key...


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## odin32 (May 23, 2020)

boot0cfg  - no need
You are absolutely right, found on the Internet :
1.disk0 (MBR) Windows 7 + disk1 (GPT) FreeBSD  !!!
2.В BIOS the boot priority: UEFI disk1 FreeBSD.
3. В BIOS Fast loading - enable
4. Reboot - hold F12 selects any OS
Thanks for the help.


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## Jose (May 23, 2020)

It looks like he has 3 disks one for each of Windows, Linux, and Freebsd. He also mentioned wanting to do it "correctly", and I'm not sure what that means in this context.

Looks like Grub 2 is already set up on the Linux disk. If it was me, I'd set the boot disk to the Linux disk in the BIOS and then configure Grub menu options for booting Freebsd and Windows. I have no idea if this is the "correct" way, however.


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## wolffnx (May 24, 2020)

but odin32  if I'undestand right,
you want to have 1 disk only dedicated to Windows and other disk dedicaded only to FreeBSD?
2 separate HDD disks?


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## Menelkir (May 25, 2020)

If you can use UEFI, refind it's really easy to setup. And have 0,1% of the hassle of grub2 to configure and manage.


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## odin32 (May 25, 2020)

wolffnx - you understand me correctly
And the topic name - Booting Windows 7 and FreeBSD from 2 separate disks
I don't use Linux, it was just a question 
«Has anyone tried multi-loading: disk0 (MBR) Windows 7 + disk1 (grub2) Linux + disk2 FreeBSD»


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## wolffnx (May 25, 2020)

odin32 said:


> wolffnx - you understand me correctly
> And the topic name - Booting Windows 7 and FreeBSD from 2 separate disks
> I don't use Linux, it was just a question
> «Has anyone tried multi-loading: disk0 (MBR) Windows 7 + disk1 (grub2) Linux + disk2 FreeBSD»



 then you have te easy task,
but you say that want 3 disk
-windows 7 on one disk
-linux on other
-and FreeBSD on other?

or just the boot loaders?


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## Jose (May 25, 2020)

GRUB/Chainloading - Gentoo Wiki
					






					wiki.gentoo.org
				











						Solved - How do I configure Grub2 to boot FreeBSD 11.1
					

I have a computer with a dual-core amd64 processor and a 500 GB hard drive which is labeled sda. Here are my partitions on the hard drive.  sda1 332.24 GB NTFS - Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit Service Pack 1 + Master Boot Record and Grub2, labeled C: sda2 9.5 GB NTFS - HP Windows Vista 32-bit...




					forums.freebsd.org
				




This used to be a neat way of multibooting, but it looks like it's a dead project now:


			GAG, the Graphical Boot Manager


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## odin32 (May 25, 2020)

No, I don't want 3 disks. 
I asked then in case it didn't work out. But we have found a solution, and it suits me.


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## jssd (Jul 4, 2020)

odi32 - Can you describe the solution you found?  I am about to run FreeBSD for the first time, installing it on my PC (and dual booting with Windows 7 on another HD), and your information would be most helpful.  Thanks!


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## jssd (Jul 11, 2020)

I got this working. If anyone out there cares, here is what I did.  YMMV...

My PC has two internal HDDs, one with Windows 7 on it.  The other used to have Centos 6, but I would like to try FreeBSD instead.  I used to dual boot Centos and Windows via grub installed from Centos.  My goal was to be able to do the same with FreeBSD.  The grub2 port appears to be dead, and I did not want to touch my Windows 7 HDD at all, so the question I had to answer was:  Where do I get grub?  For this I used Knoppix.  I should thank troubleshooters.com for the idea!

I first booted Knoppix from a Live CD, and set up 3 small partitions using its gparted:  a 1 MB ext2 partition for grub, a 3 GB reiserfs partition for Knoppix, and a 1 GB linux swap partition.  I then installed grub into its partition and Knoppix as well.  (Installing Knoppix to the HDD took me hours to figure out.  First, I had to disable my WIndows 7 HDD in the BIOS as the Knoppix installer insisted on attempting to install itself only to that disk.  Choosing resierfs for the file system was key:  Knoppix would not install into an ext2 or ext3 partition.  It was also important to have a large enough swap partition.)   I wanted to install Knoppix on my HDD so I had a quick way of accessing the grub partition as I proceeded with my FreeBSD install.  It remains to be seen whether I can mount that partition in FreeBSD (I assume it is possible, but my first attempt failed), but even if I can, I doubt I'll be able to run grub from FreeBSD to update the MBR if I ever need to.

I then installed FreeBSD with UFS into the space remaining on my 2nd HDD.  It did not install a freebsd-boot partition, and I failed after naively trying to install one.  Turns out it was unecessary.  Once FreeBSD was installed, I booted back into Knoppix to edit the grub configuration.  All that was necessary was to chainload the FreeBSD partition.

My machine now boots to grub, which displays a menu allowing me to boot into Windows 7 on my 1st HDD, or Knoppix or FreeBSD on my 2nd HDD, which is exactly what I was hoping for.  So went day 1 of my odyssey into FreeBSD.


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