23 Oct
2004
23 Oct
'04
8:21 a.m.
So what kinda pie do you want, Sellam? ;^>
LOL, but seriously Roger, that was a perfect explanation!
BTW. good tip to make a backup floppy with a Clear Label on it.
- Henk, PA8PDP.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Sent: 23-10-2004 17:18
Subject: RE: access to BIOS of DECpc
Rumor has it that Vintage Computer Festival may have mentioned these
words:
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004, Gooijen H wrote:
> A short update on my efforts ...
> The Fujitsu-OnRack version did what was to be expected: it checks
and
> sees that there is no Fujitsu drive in the PC and
stops :-)
> Sorry to say that the version from Pete is for Western Digital
drives
> and shows the same behaviour :-(
> I found a gfew manufacturer versions, but not for HP &%$#@!&
> However, there is till hope at 2 fronts: the version Dave will dig
up,
> and there is one on auction at eBay (for just a
few $$). If I will
be
> the lucky winner I will share the data on the
disk with everybody
that
> is interested in a copy. It looks like this is an
*original* OnTrack
> version that works with drives of any manufacturer. It's version 7
...
I'll
report back later.
Maybe this is a dumb suggestion, in which case I invite folks to throw
pies at me while I'm stripped down nekkid (note: I might like it), ... but
what about using a boot manager instead? Would it not accomplish the
same
thing?
Noper, two totally different critters.
Boot managers just *replaces* the standard MBR with a customizable MBR
so
you can boot multiple OSs. It has nothing to do WRT disk geometry or
sizes.
Linux's Grub is a good example. (LILO can do it too, but it's a little
less
forgiving of other operating systems.) Even Winders NT/2K/XP boot
manager
can be twiddled enough to boot Linux, tho it's *not* easy to do.
Individual
partitions are easily accessible from other OSs as the geometry is still
derived from the BIOS/HD itself.
OTOH, OnTrack (and others) actually "off-shift" the MBR and add a
"pre-loader" which adds a BIOS patch to give the BIOS the ability to
recognize larger HDs, or HDs with odd geometries. Then once it loads,
the
off-shifted MBR is then called and the computer can boot normally. If
this
BIOS patch is *not* loaded first, then the computer cannot accurately
recognize the HD geometry, partition sizes or locations, etc.
On the plus side, it's *very* handy every time an idiot PeeCee
manufacturer
decides to hard-code YADAHDL (that's "Yet Another DumbAss Hard Drive
Limitation... ;-) -- First 32Meg, then 528 Meg, then 2Gig, then 8 Gig,
then
80Gig, then 127Gig, and I'm sure there's others in between I've
forgotten.
This code allows a computer with a 528-Meg BIOS limitation (or older
computer who's BIOS doesn't have customizable entries) to utilize larger
HDs.
On the minus side - He who uses this software had better take care on
having a good backup plan in place that does not require this software!
As
the geometry's been "jumbled" to make it work in that environment, if
you
yank the drive & put it in another machine, the partitions won't be
recognized or anything. With OnTrack and some others, you *could* set up
a
boot floppy with the special code so another machine (if booted from
this
floppy) could read the partitions & whatnot, but guaranteed, as soon as
you
need that floppy, you won't be able to find it... ;-)
Hope this helps,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
So what kinda pie do you want, Sellam? ;^>
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan
sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy...
zmerch(a)30below.com | ...in oxymoron!"