I am currently attempting to install FreeBSD 9.0 RC onto a machine I am sharing Windows 7 with at the moment. The installation goes without a problem until it gets to the part where the system reboots and loads the operating system.

The FreeBSD installation did not install a bootloader for my OS so I could select if I wanted to boot to FreeBSD or Windows. The machine continues to load Windows 7 without even offering which OS I want to load like my FreeBSD install.

How do I go about installing a suitable bootloader to handle startups for Windows 7 and FreeBSD from the DVD-ROM install media?

I tried using boot0cfg with boot0cfg -B as listed from the manpages and FreeBSD online guidebook but the program refused to write the bootloader to the MBR.

I have success with GRUB2 with Linux installs of Ubuntu and other UNIX variants like OpenIndiana, but I could not find it on the install media, or at least find out if it even installed. Any tips or suggestions on what to do at this point?

Many thanks.

You could install this program in Windows XP/Vista/7:

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/FAQ

(it's free for personal non-commercial use)

This will allow you to control the Windows bootloader.

You probably create an entry for FreeBSD and point it to the FreeBSD partition, where FreeBSD's loader will take over. (chainloading)

1 members found this post helpful.

Interesting! Thank you, vharishankar.

No problem. I found out EasyBCD when I wanted a way to use the Windows bootloader for chainloading.