# accessing ad4s02 from ad4s01.



## iic2 (Aug 1, 2009)

I divided my 1000GB hard drive into approx equal of two separate drives. Primary 500GB (ad4s01) and Extended 500GB (ad4s02).  I have FreeBSD Beta-2 on each.

How would you go about accessing ad4s02 from ad4s01.

What I need to do is use (ad4s02) as our main OS of use.  ad4s01 is just there for parts, resizing ad4s02 slices, testing new versions, etc.  I do this on all my Windows machines, so that the minute I detect something wrong when connected to the web or even installing buggy software. ...  I only need boot to another partition OS and replace with the most recent clean copied stored on another partition.  I saved thousands of dollars and lots of time since 1997.  It's just that simple.

Now I want to do this with FBSD.  How do I do it?


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## aragon (Aug 1, 2009)

First of all, don't use extended partitions.  You can't boot FreeBSD from them, and it sounds like you'll need that.

Second, the device nodes shouldn't be called ad4s01 and ad4s02.  Drop the zero, so ad4s1 and ad4s2.

Third, accessing them is as simple as referencing /dev/ad4s1 and /dev/ad4s2 in a mount, dd, or whatever command.  You'll need to be more specific in what you mean by "accessing" to get a more specific answer.


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## iic2 (Aug 2, 2009)

> I divided my 1000GB hard drive into approx equal of two separate drives. Primary 500GB (ad4s01) and Extended 500GB (ad4s02). I have FreeBSD Beta-2 on each.
> 
> How would you go about accessing ad4s02 from ad4s01.
> 
> ...





> First of all, don't use extended partitions. You can't boot FreeBSD from them, and it sounds like you'll need that.


Try this than answer my original question if you can.  If not, thanks anyway.

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=5975

Second, the device nodes shouldn't be called ad4s01 and ad4s02. Drop the zero, so ad4s1 and ad4s2.
It's hard being perfect when trying to constructs a question that need complete when knowing most people never even thought about it or gave up  anyway.  That's when we all make all kinds of booboo's/typos.



> Third, accessing them is as simple as referencing /dev/ad4s1 and /dev/ad4s2 in a mount, dd, or whatever command.



You said its not possible in your #First of all statement or command. What are you referring to in details because it don't work for BIOS slices with FBSD on both partitions.  That's the only thing missing from my original question.  I took it that everyone knows that there are only TWO WAYS of installing ... "BIOS slices" and "Dangerously Dedicated" (dd labels).  It's only natural we need a solution for both or at lease one.  Read the complete question again and use a little imagination "for the sake of GOD, I mean FBSD" 



> You'll need to be more specific in what you mean by "accessing" to get a more specific answer.



"accessing" ... obviously your definition must be better than mines.

 "specific" Are you saying this don't give anyone any kind of clue.


> I do this on all my Windows machines, so that the minute I detect something wrong when connected to the web or even installing buggy software. ... I only need boot to another partition OS and replace with the most recent clean copied stored on another partition.



You must be having a bad day.  I know you don't call yourself getting pissy with ic2.  So I'll re-phase my question cause I like the person you use to be back in the good old days.

HERE WE GO:
A user has divided his HDD into two drives.  A copy of the same FBSD is on each of them installed BIOS style (or what-ever it takes).  This person has booted to FBSD-1 and he want to access (find the doorway to) FBSD-2 partition/slices/data from FBSD-1 so that he can relocate FBSD-2 data than operate on it slices.  After completion of putting things back in place he will than shut-down, restart and boot FBSD-2 and expect it to run even after all the changes he had made.  If it's not over the head of this technical forum, how would this user do this?


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## jb_fvwm2 (Aug 2, 2009)

I'd install GAG probably... to dual boot.
investigate what /dev(s) point(s) to the other partition and
ways to mount it to a mountpoint, say "/other" or "/mnt" or...


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## iic2 (Aug 2, 2009)

I be darn... I jump the gun.  Thanks jb_fvwm2.  At first I google about GAG.

http://www.freebsdsoftware.org/sysutils/gag.html

But it said nothing about dual booting so I figure I best find out more about it and go from there.  Than your words dawn on me.  That's a KEYWORD that I never thought because that was not what I been trying to do.  So I searched **FreeBSD dual boot** anyway and came up with this.

About GAG: Installation failed, ...  [Archive] - The FreeBSD Forums
http://forums.freebsd.org/archive/index.php/t-3062.html


How To Dual Boot FreeBSD and Windows XP using GRUB | Ubergeek ...:
http://www.ubergeek.co.uk/blog/2008/05/grub-freebsd-windowsxp/


Dual-Booting FreeBSD and FreeBSD - O'Reilly Media:
http://onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2002/05/09/Big_Scary_Daemons.html


It's all under these pages somewhere but Michael W. Lucas at O'Reilly Media seems to be the only one that has done all that I am after.  So I drilled down into the other pages up to 20.  They were about FreeBSD Dual Booting with all other OS's so this may be the closest I will ever get but there are some great tips in those other pages.  But he is Front Page News TODAY.

He has 4 installs of difference versions of FreeBSD on one laptop he did back in the 5x days and it seems he has access to all of them from anywhere he boot.

My question is, is this true.  Is he pulling my leg.  Am I'm seeing things. It's sounds good but I don't completely understand how he did it with those out-dated versions that gave him pure hell from day one.  Could someone create a How-To from this.  It would take me to forever just to hang of it and we all know I'm still guesting things through instead of coding things out.

I'm too excited.  I'm going back to read and search a little deeper.  You made my day, no, you made my entire year.  Thanks jb_fvwm2


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## Beastie (Aug 2, 2009)

Anything wrong with dual-booting using boot0? It works like a charm for dual-booting Windows and FreeBSD, so I guess it would be quite happy dual-booting FreeBSD and FreeBSD.
On an i386 machine (uses the MBR), you could theoretically install 4 BSDs (each on a primary BIOS partition), or 3 BSDs and more than a dozen other operating systems provided they can boot from logical BIOS partitions and you have enough disk space.


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