# Boot FreeBSD from second disk



## Vince (Sep 15, 2011)

Hi,

I have installed FreeBSD 8.2 on a second disk (700Gb, one slice with 3 partitions (/, swap, /home).  This second disk contained Ubuntu beforehand. The first disk contains windows 7, which I plan to dual boot with FreeBSD. During install I have selected BootMgr. When I restart the computer I get dumped to a grub rescue prompt. Any tips or references to useful websites would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Vince


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## Vince (Sep 15, 2011)

After some additional searching, I found the post below that may solve my problem:

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=23913

Vince


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## Tamer (Sep 15, 2011)

Hi Vince,

a notice in chapter 2.6.4from the Handbook states: "If you are installing FreeBSD on a drive other than your first,
then the FreeBSD boot manager needs to be installed on both drives."

I would give a try installing BootMgr on the fist disk too.


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## Vince (Sep 15, 2011)

Also, from what I gather from http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=23913 this should also allow me to boot into Windows 7 as well (as "Win" maybe?).


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## wblock@ (Sep 15, 2011)

But with the Windows 7 GPT layout... well, it might be okay.  If grub is already in use, that's the thing to fix.  It's far more capable.  So is EasyBCD, which is pretty easy to configure.


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## WildEndeavor (Sep 22, 2011)

I am fixing to buy an external HD 3TB for my MacBook Pro, and wanted to try booting FreeBSD from the 2nd Drive, and was curious too what all is entailed. I am having a lot of problems experimenting with regular "dual boot" OS X and OTHERS. Wondering if rEFIt will consider a 2nd Drive? Or is it better to Dual Boot EVERYTHING 50/50 down the line? Whatever is simpler. My whole goal in learning FreeBSD while still being able to use OS X is to transition from being a User to an Operator, to get the most out of Blender and other graphics and audio editing software. FreeBSD installation for me even on Virtual Box is complicated. Mainly due to never finding a login that is accepted. Maybe I will try the BETA. I noticed others are finding the new release buggy too. I just hate to fry my internal HD with so many dual boot attempts. I imagine it must be hard on the disk? So I thought I need more storage anyway, why not try throwing FreeBSD on the external? Data on this is sparse, so I wonder if its done much?


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## wblock@ (Sep 22, 2011)

Booting from a separate drive isn't really any different from a separate partition.  It might be handier in that you could use a BIOS boot menu rather than one of the multi-boot loaders.

Problems logging in aren't due to the drive.  For learning, a VM rather than dual boot has some real advantages.  The first one is that you can continue to use the host OS while running the VM, like for looking things up on the web if the FreeBSD system doesn't have a GUI environment.


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## WildEndeavor (Sep 23, 2011)

Yip, after spending weeks downloading and tinkering, I agree and shall take your advice on using the Virtual Machine (I have the Virtual Box) to learn on. I can not afford financially to keep up with OS X and accomplish my Graphics Projects and HAM Radio needs. If it were not for FreeBSD giving me a hope, I would abandon ship completely and go primitive in the Northern Islands (CNMI, from Saipan). I will keep experimenting and reading the manual, and try not to bother you all too much. I am very grateful to you all!


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