# Windows vista FreeBSD9.0 dual boot installation issue



## Sebi (Sep 22, 2012)

I have a workstation that runs with a dual boot configuration(Ubuntu 9.04 and Win vista(home premium)). 
    Yesterday I tried installing FreeBSD 9.0 over the Ubuntu partition. During the installation you are being prompt to choose between ada0 and ada1 (I wanted to use the entire disk) -- win being on ada0 and ubuntu on ada1 so I choose the second option. The installer gives me an error at this point: "Operation cancelled -- pre-check failed".

After this step you are shown the layout of the partitions. In my case it was something like:

```
ada0            <#disk size>    MBR
       ada0s1       <#disk size>    ntfs  <== win
    ada1            <#disk size>    freebsd-boot
       ada1p1       64KB            freebsd-boot
       ada1p2       <#disk size>    freebsd-ufs  /
       ada1p3       4.0GB           freebsd-swap none
    da0             1.9GB           BSD
       da0a         534MB           freebsd-ufs
```
where da0 is a USB which contains the image of FreeBSD. The installation completes successfully and the installer recommends rebooting the machine. When I reboot, GRUB(installed with ubuntu) gets confused and throws the following error:

```
stage1.5
 GRUB loading, please wait...
 Error 17
```
   Is there an easy way(without resorting to format the drives and start all over again) to fix the boot entries?


----------



## boyans (Sep 22, 2012)

You can create a dual boot Windows - FreeBSD based on Windows boot manager.
1. Write Windows MBR to first disk and repair Vista booting.
2. Add entry for FreeBDS to Windows boot menu.

Windows and FreeBSD have similar booting requirements - boot related files must be placed on primary partitions. 
The boot sequence is 
MBR (first disk)
PBR (first disk, active partition)

Make sure Windows disk is set first in BIOS.
To repair Vista/Windows boot you need a Vista/Windows 7 installation/recovery DVD/USB.
Boot it, go to repair, command prompt:
*bootsect /nt60 all /mbr *
(this will write MBR and Vista boot records to all Windows partitions, FreeBSD partitions are not affected)

You should be able to reboot to Vista after this.

To add FreeBSD to Windows boot menu you could follow instructions 
on how to Dual boot Windows 7 and Linux/UNIX


----------

