# Triple-boot Windows 10, Linux, and Trident (a FreeBSD derivative)



## sackadoo (Mar 3, 2019)

In a previous post on this forum, I asked for help sorting out the mess I created on my laptop while trying to install Linux, Windows and Trident (BSD). But with three (3) SSDs and one (1) HDD, it turned into a big mess and after many hours of gathering info and tearing my hair out, I decided it would be easier to start over.

I then removed all drives except one WD 250GB SSD and I installed the OSs in this order:

 Windows 10 Pro,
 Linux Mint 19.1, and
 Trident (what used to be TrueOS Desktop and based on FreeBSD 12).
After installing Windows and Linux, GRUB allowed me to dual boot. But after installing Trident, it didn't show up in GRUB and so can't be booted and I'm still just dual-booting Windows and Linux.

From there, I used boot-repair's Recommended Repair, but I ended up with a full dozen entries in GRUB:


 1 that goes to System Setup,
 2 that boot Linux (one with Advanced options),
 2 that boot Windows, and
 7 that do essentially nothing, either crashing with messages such as "alloc magic broken," "premature EOF," or a countdown into SHIM that then dies.

All of the 7 that die do go back to GRUB one way or another, so that's something at least.

What I'd like to try now is to install rEFInd using the refind-install script so I can clean up all these unusable entires in GRUB. Or does rEFInd replace GRUB? I'm not clear on that.

Before I go ahead, though, I'm hoping someone can review all the info below and let me know if rEFInd will be the most effective way to end up with a working triple-boot set-up. I've read through the docs for rEFInd, but other than instructions for installing with either Linux or OSX, I'm not getting a clear picture on how to proceed or if rEFInd is the best way to go.

Maybe there's another way to do this and it means wiping the drive and starting over. I'm open to this because another day of installing OSs is no big deal at this point.

So, on to the information I gathered...

Output of sudo blkid:


```
/dev/sda1: LABEL="Recovery" UUID="E89E06DC9E06A2E4" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="d96aa3e6-b72f-4871-a5ce-07d2089800c1"
/dev/sda2: UUID="4C06-FD0D" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad"
/dev/sda4: UUID="2A1AB8BD1AB8877B" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="60a00964-2d87-4b72-bec1-ad15b0160789"
/dev/sda5: UUID="526819bf-34ad-4c1b-93cc-6fb8db0267d0" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="eeb05fee-9833-4dbe-93cb-eb7d0eae79eb"
/dev/sda6: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="EFISYS" UUID="BD41-11EE" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5"
/dev/sda7: LABEL="trident" UUID="16658864228302214331" UUID_SUB="108957535238235013" TYPE="zfs_member" PARTUUID="6bd42ec6-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5"
/dev/sda3: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="4f778216-53f7-47f3-b51c-d9529bf3b172"
/dev/sda8: PARTUUID="6bd4afc8-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5"
```

Output of efibootmgr -v:


```
BootCurrent: 0002
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0002,0004,0000,0001,0006,0005
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager    HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...a................
Boot0001* ubuntu    HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0002* ubuntu    HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0004* UEFI OS    HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0005* ubuntu    HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\GRUBX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0006* ubuntu    HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\GRUBX64.EFI)..BO
```

Output of lsblk -f:


```
NAME   FSTYPE     LABEL    UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
sda                                                             
├─sda1 ntfs       Recovery E89E06DC9E06A2E4                     
├─sda2 vfat                4C06-FD0D                            
├─sda3                                                          
├─sda4 ntfs                2A1AB8BD1AB8877B                     /media/ron/2A1AB8BD1AB8877B
├─sda5 ext4                526819bf-34ad-4c1b-93cc-6fb8db0267d0 /
├─sda6 vfat       EFISYS   BD41-11EE                            /boot/efi
├─sda7 zfs_member trident  16658864228302214331                 
└─sda8
```

Matching PARTUUIDs...

These three are all the same:


```
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager    HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...a................
Boot0002* ubuntu    HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0005* ubuntu    HD(2,GPT,a9102bf5-58af-4c49-ba00-5d3dbc0b8bad,0xfa000,0x32000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\GRUBX64.EFI)..BO
```

And so are these three:


```
Boot0001* ubuntu    HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\SHIMX64.EFI)
Boot0004* UEFI OS    HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0006* ubuntu    HD(6,GPT,6bd33430-3c10-11e9-91c7-d8cb8a8104b5,0x1499c800,0x64000)/File(\EFI\UBUNTU\GRUBX64.EFI)..BO
```

Looking at the disk layout from Windows 10:


```
Partition Volume   File System Status        Size
1         Recovery NTFS        OEM           499   mb
2         EFI                  Basic         100   mb
3         C:       NTFS        system, etc.  97.06 gb
4                                            
5                              Primary       67.15 gb
6         EFI                                200   mb
7                              Primary       64.7  gb
8                              Primary        3.08 gb
```

In what used to be called the BIOS, but is now (what?) UEFI Setup?:

_Note: This is an MSI GE72 2QF laptop with the Aptio Setup Utility (2015, American Megatrends)_

UEFI Hard Disk Drive BBS Priorities
Boot option #1: [ubuntu]
Boot option #2: [UEFI OS P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)]
Boot option #3: [Windows Boot Manager (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)]
Boot option #4: [ubuntu]
Boot option #5: [ubuntu (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)]
Boot option #6: [ubuntu (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)]

Digging down a bit further, into the list of options that can be selected for each Boot option, these are the choices:


 ubuntu
 UEFI Boot Manager (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)
 Windows Boot Manager (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)
 ubuntu
 ubuntu (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)
 ubuntu (P0: WDC WD5250G2B0B)

Based on all this, these are my assumptions (please correct me if any are wrong):


 there are two EFI boot partitions on the drive, sda2 and sda6,
 the two vfat partitions are the partitions where installers have placed EFI boot scripts, managers, etc,
 the Windows installer created sda2,
 either the Linux Mint 19.1 installer or the Trident 18.12 installer created sda6.

I'm basing this last assumption mostly on the fact that until I installed Linux, sda6 didn't exist. However, because I didn't think to record whether or not it existed AFTER installing Linux and BEFORE installing Trident, I don't know which created it, but my money is on Trident.

Also, the three partitions containing OSs are:


 sda4 (Windows 10),
 sda5 (Linux Mint 19.1), and
 sda7 (Trident).

And these are the three options I want to choose between on start-up.

More assumptions:


 GRUB is on sda2,
 the Windows Boot Manager is also on sda2,
 sda2 is where I want to put rEFInd, and
 sda6 is extraneous.

Any suggestions, recommendations, or hints will be appreciated.


----------



## sackadoo (Mar 3, 2019)

Wozzeck.Live said:


> Also... for FreeBSD it will be easier to completely deactivate UEFI by emulating the legacy BIOS mode through CSM option.
> If you want to keep full UEFI.... this can be very complicated with FreeBSD,


Seems EasyBCD doesn't like anything but full-on Legacy mode, either. All non-Windows options are disabled whether I select "UEFI with CSM" or "UEFI." The only other option is Legacy and it doesn't boot anything, just tries to connect to the network via Ethernet.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

The odd thing is, I've done a Google search for boot managers and EasyBCD didn't come up, so this was a new one on me.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Mar 3, 2019)

sackadoo
Discussions about other operating systems, including FreeBSD derivatives, is not allowed on this forum.


----------



## DutchDaemon (Mar 3, 2019)

Yeah, there is actually so little in this topic related to FreeBSD itself (save a vague tangent derivative) that this really should not be discussed here. This would get many more (and probably more informed) replies on any mainstream Linux forum.


----------

