Re: Off topic new pc

[J R FOX jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

--- John  wrote:

> Not sure just what you mean there. I've got dos,
> win98 & win2k each in its own partition on the
> same disk, in that order.

That's what I meant. DOS has to be the 1st. Primary
partitition, otherwise it won't boot. If someone
knows differently, I'd like to hear about it. I have
two physical, primary C: partitions, on each of my
computers. The original intention was to drop W98
into the "2nd." C: partition. W95 or W98 also insist
on being C:, whereas you can easily install NT, W2K,
XP, or OS/2 | eCS to a logical partition, occurring
much later on the drive and carrying a much later
drive designation.

In a multi-boot system, you'll want to retain as much
drive designation constancy as you can arrange, for as
many of the other partitions as possible. My Xy lives
on D: or F:, which are both FAT partitions, and I want
any OS to be able to look for them on those same drive
letters. In my case, NO drive letters change, from OS
to OS. But certain drives are always unavailable,
depending on where I am at the moment. 

Anyway, that plan for an alternate C: of W98 came a
cropper, due to install problems I ascribe to not
having appropriate drivers for some latter day
hardware. With enough hunting around the Net, this
could probably be finessed. But the W98 installs
either failed or turned out crippled, and (thus far) I
did not pursue the matter. It was nothing vital. In
another experiment, I tried to put another iteration
of DOS into these 2nd. C: slots. Of course, it had to
be in such a way that one of them was always hidden.
I tried PC-DOS 2000, and then DR-DOS 7.
 Much as I expected, neither of these alternate DOS
iterations were bootable. There is also one called
FreeDOS, but I don't think the results would be any
different.

> (Of course, one needs a
> boot manager, but 2k offers one.)

Yes, that's what I'm using. Actually, the IBM Boot
Manager calls the Win-32 Boot Mgr. from its menu, in
order to boot DOS or W2K. If I thought it would
confer any real adavantages, I would probably go back
to System Commander, or try Acronis.

> When any one of them boots, it makes itself C:

That's partly a result of how you set it up. W2K
could be something later, if you had a reason to
arrange it that way.

> Dos of course doesn't see
> the other, fat32, partitions. It has to be first
> for a question of size - it can't handle any more
> than 8 Gb.

I think a more correct way of saying this is that your
DOS partition (which is FAT-16) can't be any larger
than 2Gb, and DOS cannot see any further than the 8Gb
boundary (distance from the beginning of the HDD).
Therefore, anything your DOS programs need access to (
*from the DOS boot itself* ) has to be within that
range. DOS also has to be first -- unless my
understanding of this is deficient -- because that's
the only way it's going to be bootable.


Jordan