> 
> hmm...that seems to conveniently answer the question that i was about
> to ask.  i have a new laptop (toshiba portege 7200) with win98
> scrunched down from the 12 gigs it used to have to 1.5 (via partition
> magic).  freebsd came next and was able to boot them both.  netbsd
> (1.4U) went last (and the freebsd boot loader wouldn't boot it) and
> so i added osbs.  which apparently can't boot either of them.
> 
> i'll re-install 1.4U tonight and select the netbsd boot loader.  thx.  :)
> 
> 
I believe the issue is the following:
The bios os a x86 platform can read on till cilinder 1023 from a disk.
Now for linux and the bsd's this isnt a problem, however, the freebsd bootloader and lilo use the bios to read the kernel from a disk. So both cant boot os'ses from parts of a disk where the bios cant reach it. In this case, just use the netbsd bootmanager, it's a great thing and easy to install, i guess that'll solve your problem. 
Bye,

Mipam