Hi, I'm all new to FreeBSD, and to *BSD's in general, and it's working fine for me so far. I'm dualbooting with Windows XP, which is on the first partition on the drive. When i installed FreeBSD 5.0 it corrupted my WinXP-partition somehow, so after a few days of BSD-experimenting, i wanted to install WinXP again. I made a fresh install and everything, but now my bootloader is missing. I don't have a diskdrive because mine is broken right now, so i can't access FreeBSD. I've tried using the CD to install the bootloader again, which i used to be able to do with various Linux-dists, but it hasn't worked so far.

My question is, how do i get to a shell of some sorts in FreeBSD so i can install the bootloader again, and how do i install it again? Lilo was very effective on this, and GRUB too, but i have zero knowledge of the FreeBSD-bootloader.

Thanks in advance

23 views, but no answer what so ever? Someone must have at least one tip to share. I would be surprised if something like this hasn't ever happened to any of you

I'm not familiar with BSD's bootloader either, so all i can offer is, if you desperately need to get into windows, grab a windows bootdisk, boot into DOS and type: fdisk /mbr and that will place windows bootloader in the MBR.

I AM in windows. My problem is that i can't get into FreeBSD. I have a windows bootloader in the MBR, and i want to know how i replace that with a BSD-bootloader without formatting my BSD-drive and risking that my windows-partition gets corrupted again.

I'm not sure if LILO can boot BSD, I don't see why it wouldn't.

What problems do you have of not being able to install LILO? Just grab a slackware CD, boot off the CD, and install LILO into the MBR...

Hmm... I'm thinking about it. Thanks

Just to reassure you, LILO boots FreeBSD no problem. I think FreeBSD has its own multiboot capable bootloder, but I could never find out how to use it, and like GrimReaper says, it's really easy just to get a Slackware CD or somesuch and install LILO in your MBR, so long as you know the syntax of the config file.

Alex

Thanks alot for the help, but will FreeBSD be able to run the lilo-executable so i can configure it all?

No, LILO only runs in Linux. But if you happen to have a bootable Linux CD hanging around, it's the easiest choice. You don't need to actually install Linux to use LILO.

Alex

Download a copy of linux that fits on a floppy and is bootable.
Tom's boot disk is nice. (search at google)
Boot the floppy. During the boot process note the partitions discovered by the kernel.
determine which device file in the /dev directory represents
your BSD root partition. try mounting/viewing all of them if necessary.
once you find your BSD root partition, create a directory and mount it using this directory as a mount point.
now you should have access to your BSD boot loader.
Don't forget to chroot, or you won't be able to do anything

As i said:

but thanks for the help anyway