I believe you may have installed the FreeBSD in a peculiar way as the information in Post #11 suggests sda1 has been partitioned as an extended partition with sda5 to sda9 as logical partitions inside.

When I installed my FreeBSD I use a primary partition and let the installer to subdivide it into internal slices which are not regarded as logical partitions like sda5, sda6, sda7..etc.

Can you get inside Suse and invoke Grub there (typing "sudo grub") and show us the output of
Also tell us your partition scheme by showing the full Linux terminal output of

Thanks again for your interest in helping to resolve this problem. Here are the results of the commands you requested (the last line is the result of 'uname -a', in case it helps):


grub> geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81: C/H/S = 4865/255/63, The number of sectors = 78165360, /dev/sda
Partition num: 0, [BSD sub-partitions immediately follow]
BSD Partition num: 'a', Filesystem type is ufs2, partition type 0xa5
BSD Partition num: 'b', Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0xa5
BSD Partition num: 'd', Filesystem type is ufs2, partition type 0xa5
BSD Partition num: 'e', Filesystem type is ufs2, partition type 0xa5
BSD Partition num: 'f', Filesystem type is ufs2, partition type 0xa5

grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 19929/255/63, The number of sectors = 320173056, /dev/hda
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 4, Filesystem type is reiserfs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 5, Filesystem type is reiserfs, partition type 0x83

-------------------------------


cae@darkstar:~> sudo /sbin/fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 14589 117186111 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 14590 14651 498015 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3 14652 19929 42395535 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 14652 16762 16956576 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 16763 19929 25438896 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4865 39078081 a5 FreeBSD

---------------------------------------------


Linux darkstar 2.6.16.13-4-default #1 Wed May 3 04:53:23 UTC 2006 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

I am satisfied that your FreeBSD partition has been correctly setup.

The only plausible explanations that I could think of are

(1) You might have set up the two disks as a RAID and that would cause Suse to regard the Sata being part of the RAID. Some mobo can set up a RAID for a Pata and Sata combination. If FreeBSD doesn't support RAID then it sees two different disks.

(2) You could have opted for not installing the boot manager. This would make FreeBSD "unchainloadable". FreeBSD allows (1) installing the Boot manager, (2) not installing the boot manager and (3) putting boot manager in the MBR if I remember it correctly. FreeBSD is chainloadable only if you opt for installing the Boot Manager but not in the MBR.

I don't have a cure but a couple of suggestions.

(a) Suse Grub is controlled by /boot/grub/menu.lst. In this text file near the top there is a line starting "gfxmenu". I recommend you to disable this line temporarily by adding a "#" in front, like "#gfxmenu". On a next reboot the graphic screen will disappear but you can get a Grub prompt by pressing the "c" key. In a Grub prompt you can ask Grub to confirm a few things. Grub at this stage has no kernel and what it sees is what it can boot for you. So do the geometry commands like
If Grub shows (hd1) has partition then you can fire up FreeBSD "manually" by coomand
You can also investigate if FreeBSD has installed the boot manager in the MBR of the Sata sda by trying to boot up whole of sda (or hd1 in Grub term) by
When none of them works you can either "reboot" or return back to Suse screen by
Investigaion by a Grub prompt and booting each system manually is highly recommended. You should be able to arrive at a conclusion if (hd1) is recognised by Grub or not as an individual disk.

(b) I think a FreeBSD user can boot up a FreBSD installation CD to add extra programs. Can't swear if you can use it to add the boot manager but it is worth a try, otherwise it could be a re-install to get the boot manager back. This alternative will not work if the Bios has been set up the two disk as Raid.

(c) Try to break up the Raid system if it exists.

1) No; raid rom is disabled at the bios. I did experiment turning it on but got no change, so I disabled it back.

2) You probably hit it right on. I can't remember clearly, but I think I opted to install the manager at the mbr.

a) I remember dropping to the grub command line and trying 'root (hd1)' and 'root (hd1,0)'; grub responded that could not find the drive. This however was a couple of weeks ago and can't remember the details; I'll try your recommendations and take notes.

b) I've tried unsuccessfully to boot the installed sys from the CD. I'll visit the FreeBSD site to investigate.

Perhaps it would be even better to do a fresh install making sure that the load manager is NOT installed to the mbr.

QUESTION: you think it would be a good idea to update the bios and the chipset drivers? I downloaded them, but didn't want to introduce more variables to the problem.

If Grub definitely can't see your Sata then your Bios has the sda for other purpose and has made it unavailable to Grub. The sda is recognised only with Suse's help, by which time the kernel is scanning all the disks.

You could update the Bios as FreeBSD isn't going anywhere. Jusy test Suse to make sure it work OK after the Bios update.

Also there is an off chance Grub may be defective and so you can overwrite it with a fresh copy by opting for a Grub prompt at the boot screen and then issuing commands