# boot0cfg(8) - Attempting to Dual-Boot with Windows 7



## dthomas53 (May 31, 2011)

Hi all,

I'm trying to install -CURRENT from this month's snapshot on my Asus M50Sa laptop.

However, it seems they've just added the new FreeBSD Installer, which didn't seem (IIRC, not at home ATM) to install the FreeBSD Boot Manager.

So I booted into single-user and ran boot0cfg:


```
boot0cfg -B -f /tmp/mbr -s 3 -v ada0
```

My partitioning scheme looks like this:


```
ada0s1    -> NTFS (Windows)
ada0s2    -> NTFS (Windows)
ada0s3
  ada0s3a -> freebsd-ufs
  ada0s3b -> freebsd-swap
```

This successfully installed the Boot Manager and I am able to boot Windows without an issue, but when I select FreeBSD, it simply hangs (just a "|" on the next line, not spinning).

Is it clear to anyone that I've done something wrong here? If I have to try 8.2-RELEASE, I will... just curious if anything here sticks out.

Thanks in advance!


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## jb_fvwm2 (May 31, 2011)

I once installed to a laptop which also froze unless the pccard or pcmia or whatever was at least partially removed (maybe an irq conflict). To this day partially removing the card enables the shutdown to complete... Maybe that could be relevant. BTW I'll mention it here because it might also be relevant to another thread too. The shareware boot manager BootIt can select bsd/windows at boot, backup either to unused space on a fat32 partition or cd-r; shrink/expand many types of partitions if one is practiced, (and in the case of windows, defragging it twice, first...), put on a BSD partition (165/a5h iirc), (although I once almost hosed an extended fat32 partition by creating a bsd partition within it in an unusual or too complex way...).  I've other drives using the GAG dualboot manager, so use a total of three methods including the freebsd dual boot manager.  
Another unconventional way I've found to initially partition the disk is to use the -f parameter to fdisk which has examples in the manpage. (Complete newbie to GPT / gpart as of yet).


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## UNIXgod (May 31, 2011)

I gave up on the bootloader due to corruption of the mbr.

I used http://gag.sourceforge.net/ for years. I use grub now when I can.

gag has everything you need though and can restore the mbr if you need to.


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## dthomas53 (May 31, 2011)

Thanks, guys. I'll give 8.2-RELEASE a go and, if that fails, I'll just install GRUB.

Thanks again!


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