Mail Archives: opendos/2001/12/01/11:53:03
Thanks for the response..
I suspect you've put your finger on the problem, although the solution
isn't too clear at this point :-(
The specific instance was an old 486 with Linux partitions, and if DRDOS
needs to read what's there in order to replace it, Ill probably have to
look for another solution. MS-DOS apparently doesn't attempt to
interpret what's there, because it works fine.
The problem is this:
When installing Linux, the mbr needs to be a POBT (Plain old boot
track). Many of the machines we recycle have had Windoze or os2 on them
in the past, and we need to be able to start fresh. In addition, there
are opportunities (several, actually ;-) ) to screw up a Linux
installation to the extent that it is usefull to start over. MSDOS works
fine for this, but I can't provide a download utility disk using MSDOS
because of licensing issues.
I have found shareware "disk editors" that will do this, but they aren't
what I would call production tools. I have thought of creating a simple
utility ( in C ) that would simply pop a new mbr on the drive without
dragging us through a lot of nonsense, but I was hoping there is a
simple solution already out there. This is all that is holding up the
release of SlamDunk Linux procedures, and I would appreciate any
suggestions.
Matthias Paul wrote:
>
> On 2001-11-30, Thomas A Webb wrote:
>
> > When I attempt to replace the MBR using fdisk, I get an error to the
> > effect that it can't save the old boot record, and the operation fails.
>
> What´s the error message exactly? I am assuming you use DR-DOS 7.03 FDISK,
> is this correct?
>
> > Is there an unpublished feature, or do I need to go through the ordeal
> > of writing a program in C to do this? The reason I need this is that my
> > users don't have MS-DOS disks laying around (most are windoze jockies)
> > and I need to be able to get a simple boot record installed.
>
> If the message is actually that it cannot write the backup file,
> I´d assume the partition is FAT32 or something else unrecognized
> by the DR-DOS kernel. Can you access drive C: from the booted
> DR-DOS?
>
> If the error message is more, that it cannot write the new sector,
> it´s probably an anti-virus protection which you must first disable
> in the ROM-BIOS Setup.
>
> Hope it helps,
>
> Matthias
>
> --
>
> <mailto:Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>; <mailto:mpaul AT drdos DOT org>
> http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html; http://mpaul.drdos.org
--
Tom Webb
http://wordwonder.com
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