# Windows 7 FreeBSD Dual Boot Woes



## kcbowhunter (Jan 25, 2011)

Hi,

I've got a dual quad core machine and I'd like to do a dual boot of Windows 7 and FreeBSD/AMD64.  I've tried 3 times and have not succeeded yet... appreciate your help.  I've also read through a bunch of threads and have not found anyone else with my particular problem: I install Windows 7 first, then FreeBSD/AMD64, and the machine always boots into FreeBSD.

I am installing Windows 7 first.  When installing Windows I delete all partitions, so that Windows has the whole disk (1TB).  After Windows 7 is installed, I use the control panel to shrink the C: partition by 300GB to have this available for two installs of FreeBSD.

In the FreeBSD install, I create a new slice of 150GB for the AMD64 version of FreeBSD, I'm thinking I'd also like to install FreeBSD/i386 once I get this working.

I do not make the slice for FreeBSD/AMD64 bootable.  I install FreeBSD and everything seems to go smoothly.

When installing FreeBSD, I do not install the boot manager.  I'm planning on using the EastyBCD utility as described here: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=14222&highlight=dual+booting.

I have read these threads, but I can't find anyone else that has the same problem as I am having: after I install FreeBSD, even though I did not install the FreeBSD boot manager and did not mark the slice as bootable, the machine boots into FreeBSD.

One thing I notice that I haven't seen discussed is that Windows 7 creates a small partition first.  When installing FreeBSD, the fdisk shows this partition as having a size of 2047, PType is 12 and is is listed as 'unused'.  The next partition is the Windows C:, then the Windows D: I created from within Windows.  These are both NTFS partitions with a subtype of 7.

I haven't been able to find this problem discussed anywhere else, I'd appreciate any help to get this dual boot machine up and running.  Thanks.


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## kcbowhunter (Jan 25, 2011)

I should have mentioned I'm trying to install FreeBSD 8.1.

Here is a thread that discuss the small system partition added by Win 7 install.  What's puzzling is that when I install FreeBSD fdisk does not recognize this partition.  And even though I don't install the freebsd boot loader and I don't mark the freebsd slice as bootable, after installing freebsd the machine boots into freebsd not windows.


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## kcbowhunter (Jan 25, 2011)

http://www.pronetworks.org/forums/windows-7-creates-a-small-system-partition-t104873.html

Forgot to include this reference to the thread.


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## kcbowhunter (Jan 25, 2011)

I found the solution here: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=4966

Although the MBR was not installed, sysinstall marked your FreeBSD partition active, hence you are always booting FreeBSD

I fixed it by setting the Windows 7 slice as the active partition from the FreeBSD fdisk installation screen.


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