# Can't boot Windows XP after installing FreeBSD



## Yoshi (Oct 17, 2009)

Hi, I'm new to FreeBSD. Just installed it on my hard drive to dual boot with windows XP. The problem I get is that when I try and select Windows XP from the boot menu it just sits there and does nothing. I get the boot menu:

F1 Win
F2 FreeBSD
F5 Drive 1

Drive 1 is another hard drive I have in the computer, no operating system on it. If I hit F2 FreeBSD boots just fine. If I hit F1 I just get a blinking cursor.

What should I do to get it to boot XP?


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## jb_fvwm2 (Oct 17, 2009)

IMHO the answer should be a FAQ.  
The answer (in the freebsd-questions list at least every
60 days) depends upon whether you accidentally overwrote
XP. If not, a simple procedure (not my expertise). I would
use BootIT or GAG though, as part of the dual boot.


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## GPF (Oct 17, 2009)

Well, I am assuming you did *not* save the partition entry of Windows XP (beg, size, C/H/S values etc) before the installation of FreeBSD. If you did, just fix it via fdisk -u /your/disk, from a FreeBSD console.

The problem with Windows XP is that sometimes, FreeBSD installation messes with its partition table entry in the MBR, thus rendering it unbootable. But there's hope! The most important thing to remember is to stay calm at all times and not do something hasty. Drink a beer, take a deep breath and let's try to fix it.

You can check a program called testdisk which you can find via the following link http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

You can use this program to restore the entry of the Windows XP partition and hopefully, make it bootable again. If this doesn't work, let me know.


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## Oxyd (Oct 17, 2009)

This happened to me when I was experimenting with FreeBSD's bootmgr and trying to dual-boot with Vista.  For some reason, installing bootmgr cleared the bootable flag from the Windows slice and Windows didn't like that.  I booted a Fedora live CD, ran fdisk, gave the Win slice bootable flag and everything was working again.  (I used Linux fdisk because I don't really understand FreeBSD fdisk.)


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## Bunyan (Oct 17, 2009)

A Windows XP Recovery Console with a following *fixboot* won't help?


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## Yoshi (Oct 17, 2009)

GPF said:
			
		

> Well, I am assuming you did *not* save the partition entry of Windows XP (beg, size, C/H/S values etc) before the installation of FreeBSD. If you did, just fix it via fdisk -u /your/disk, from a FreeBSD console.
> 
> The problem with Windows XP is that sometimes, FreeBSD installation messes with its partition table entry in the MBR, thus rendering it unbootable. But there's hope! The most important thing to remember is to stay calm at all times and not do something hasty. Drink a beer, take a deep breath and let's try to fix it.
> 
> ...





Thanks! :beer This worked. The head value was 16 when it should have been 255 which was causing the problem. I'll make sure to remember about this next time I install FreeBSD


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