# Windows hangs after FreeBSD installation



## Ahmed (Aug 21, 2009)

Hi guys,

I know it seems somehow a strange issue, but here is what happened.

Yesterday I partitioned my laptop's hard disk (320GB) using windows disk manager to 2 primary partitions, 1x50GB for windows xp which was already there, and 1x40GB for FreeBSD slice, and the rest as an extended partition. I rebooted couple of times, then started FreeBSD installation process.

In the partitioning, I choose FreeBSD slice, and partitioned it, but when i was asked to choose the boot loader between Boot Manager, MBR and none, I choose to install Boot Manager, as i want my boot loader to be FreeBSD's loader, and the rest of the installation continued with no issues.

When i rebooted after the installation finished, I was prompted F1 for windows and F2 for FreeBSD, I wanted to check on my windows system, so I pressed F1, and Windows loaded correctly, until certain point and it hangs (it hangs at the windows xp logo with the blue background). But the good thing which i am glad it went alright that FreeBSD started without any issues.

Booting into FreeBSD and mounting my NTFS paritions, and they were intacted and nothing was missing, everything on those partitions was fine.

My question is, does FreeBSD change the windows partitions by any mean so that such an issue happens? I would be very glad if someone would help me.

Thanks a Lot in advance


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## SirDice (Aug 21, 2009)

Ahmed said:
			
		

> When i rebooted after the installation finished, I was prompted F1 for windows and F2 for FreeBSD, I wanted to check on my windows system, so I pressed F1, and Windows loaded correctly, until certain point and it hangs (it hangs at the windows xp logo with the blue background).


This has nothing to do with FreeBSD or it's bootloader.



> My question is, does FreeBSD change the windows partitions by any mean so that such an issue happens?


Nope. It can't touch anything on an NTFS filesystem. The build-in NTFS support is read-only, it cannot write.


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## aragon (Aug 21, 2009)

SirDice?  That F1/F2 bit at startup _is_ the FreeBSD boot manager.  And FreeBSD's builtin NTFS support does support writing, just with limitations.

Anyhow, Ahmed, there's no way FreeBSD would have touched your Windows data.  I'm not sure what's causing it to freeze like you describe.  Does it ever get past that point?  Have you tried safe mode?


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## mdg583 (Aug 21, 2009)

There is a possible issue I had, but I don't think yours looks like it. If an OS was added or removed from a partition on the hard drive before the windows OS, it might no longer be on the partition # it thinks it is on. (an issue that happened on freebsd for me as well - had to modify /etc/fstab.) But I don't think this is your issue. If it is, it is fixed by modifying boot.ini on the Windows partition to refer windows to the correct partition.


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## Ahmed (Aug 21, 2009)

Thanks for the replies guys.



			
				aragon said:
			
		

> Anyhow, Ahmed, there's no way FreeBSD would have touched your Windows data.  I'm not sure what's causing it to freeze like you describe.  Does it ever get past that point?  Have you tried safe mode?



No aragon, It just hangs there, in safe mode or normal boot. It seems to be a common issue with various solutions (that's what one should expect from windows). I just want to know why did it happen after FreeBSD installation (i know its weird).



> There is a possible issue I had, but I don't think yours looks like it. If an OS was added or removed from a partition on the hard drive before the windows OS, it might no longer be on the partition # it thinks it is on. (an issue that happened on freebsd for me as well - had to modify /etc/fstab.) But I don't think this is your issue. If it is, it is fixed by modifying boot.ini on the Windows partition to refer windows to the correct partition.



That's what I suspected mdg583, however, I am trying to figure out if there is changes that happened on the partition table, I am still new on FreeBSD, things are moving kinda slow. I will try to modify my boot.ini though.


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## Beastie (Aug 21, 2009)

Of course the partition table was modified. The FreeBSD slice was added and most probably the Windows slice's C/H/S values were modified. The latter may cause booting problems on *some* computers... but not all.
However this is not your problem at all since you are able to boot both slices. It's a Windows problem 100%.


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## rghq (Aug 22, 2009)

Can you boot in "Safe Mode" to disable the "automatic restart" on a failure ?
If there's a bluescreen of Win using the STOP / error code (0x12345678 as example) and then asking your favorite search engine what may be wrong with Windows.


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## Ahmed (Aug 23, 2009)

Issue fixed, turns out that the drive letters have been changed (i still want to know why) after FreeBSD installation or something with the partition IDs in windows.


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