Bug 145803

  I divided 75 GB hard IDE-disk on 3 equal partitions: on first partition Windows XP was installed, on second partition PC-BSD 8.0 RELEASE was installed, on third partition FreeBSD 8.0 RELEASE was installed. 
After installation Boot Manager from FreeBSD 8.0 RELEASE on the hard disk and reboot I pressed F1 and saw only flashing cursor (F2 and F3 were working). I have tried option "Standard" in the sysinstall Boot Manager installation menu to remove Boot Manager from MBR, but it did not help. 
  Because installer FreeBSD 8.0 RELEASE could not install too 2 packages "linux_base-f10-10_2.tbz" and "xscreensaver-gnome-hacks-5.10.tbz" from "8.0-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso" (md5sum of this image is all right), I downloaded new FreeBSD 7.3 RELEASE image - "FreeBSD-7.3-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso", removed all partitions from the MBR by Windows program MBRFix and repeated situation, replacing FreeBSD 8.0 RELEASE on FreeBSD 7.3 RELEASE. The result is the same.
  I removed Boot Manager record from MBR, using "fdisk /mbr" Windows 98 boot-diskette; Windows program Partition Table Doctor told me, that there is pointed out wrong number of partition 1 sectors in the MBR and that there is no active partitions on the hard disk, and "fixed" these errors, but herewith partition 2 with PC-BSD 8.0 RELEASE disappeared. On free place I installed PC-BSD 8.0 RELEASE and its Boot Manager. Boot Manager of PC-BSD and all systems are working well.

  Analogous situations are described on the FreeBSD Forum:
1) "http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?p=78077":
"When I rebooted I got a single line flashing cursor and no boot manager after the bios check. I decided to reinstall the original Windows MBR so at least I could start checking what went wrong on the forums. Problem is, I still have just the flashing cursor. I can boot up to the Windows CD and use the repair faciltiy. I have tried fixmbr and fixboot but still just the flashing cursor."
2) "http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=9404".

Fix: 

Boot Manager sourses of PC-BSD 8.0 RELEASE may be used.
How-To-Repeat: It seems enough to divide any hard on 2 partitions, on any (the order
is not of importance) partition to install Windows XP and on the other
partition to install FreeBSD 8.0 (or 7.3) RELEASE with Boot Manager.