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Old 22nd October 2008
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jggimi jggimi is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: USA
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Step by step, to use the existing MBR Partition #1 for OpenBSD, without changing its size (Untested, but may be helpful as a general guide):
  1. Back up your C: drive and your registry. Be prepared to reinstall Windows, in case you make a mistake.
  2. Boot OpenBSD install media.
  3. At the "Do you want to use *all* of <drive> for OpenBSD?" prompt, reply with the default "no". You will enter an interactive fdisk session.
  4. Edit partition #1 ("e" command). Change the partition type to "a6". Press the Enter key for all other options, which should leave all starting and ending positions exactly the same.
  5. Flag partition #1 ("flag" command). This will mark partition #1 as the boot partition.
  6. Write the MBR ("w" command).
  7. quit ("q" command).
  8. The install script will place you in an interactive disklabel session. Set up your bsd partitions as you want them. You need at least an "a" partition, if nothing else.
  9. After installation completes, reboot, using the hard drive as your boot device. OpenBSD should boot. Complete your initial boot, log on as root.
  10. To boot Windows, run the fdisk program and flag partition #0, write the MBR, exit fdisk, and reboot. To boot OpenBSD, use the Windows disk manager to flag the OpenBSD partition as "Active".
Many people with Windows NT-based systems use Windows boot loader for multibooting, as described in the FAQ. I don't. I prefer a multibooter called "GAG." It is more flexible and easier to set up. You can configure all of your booting partitions on a diskette before committing your GAG configuration to hard drive, too. http://gag.sourceforge.net

Last edited by jggimi; 22nd October 2008 at 11:54 AM.
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