13 Apr
2004
13 Apr
'04
4:51 a.m.
On 12 Apr 2004 at 12:03, John Allain wrote:
Step one seems to be generic: format command.
Step two is ?
Step 2 is "install a DOS boot sector at cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1 of the
floppy." This is normally done automatically by the "format" command, but
the format command for a given OS will install a boot sector for that OS,
e.g., if you're running NT, the NT format command will install an NT boot
sector, i.e., one that tries to load NTLDR.
Is there a way I can patch or debug the floppy after
generic
format to make it look bootable?
Copy the boot sector (512 bytes) from a known bootable DOS diskette to a
file on your hard drive. Then, to make a new diskette DOS-bootable, copy
the boot sector file to logical sector 0 of the floppy as "step 2" of your
process.
You didn't mention what your "higher-version OS" is, but if you're
running
one of the Win9x-series, or WinNT up through version 4.0, you can run a
small "debug" script to copy the boot sector. This one will copy from the
floppy to the file "c:\bootsect.dos":
L 100 0 0 1
N C:\BOOTSECT.DOS
R BX
0
R CX
200
W
Q
...and this one will copy it back to a floppy:
N C:\BOOTSECT.DOS
L
W 100 0 0 1
Q
(This will work under NT 4.0 as well if you're logged in as
"Administrator". I don't believe that it will work under Win2K/XP, as
direct floppy writes from "debug" seem to have been disallowed even under
the Administrator account, although I haven't investigated thoroughly.)
-- Dave