X-Apparently-From: Message-ID: <000501c01dc0$48c15510$9e8a1004@dbcooper> From: "Patrick Moran" To: References: <01c01cdb$0e5d8780$cb5eb7d4 AT default> Subject: Re: does DR-DOS dynamically assign the drive letters at boot? Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 14:05:48 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.3018.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.3018.1300 Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com I'll see if I can explain this. The IBM BIOS will assign the first physical drive it finds to hex 80 and the second drive hex 81... The first primary partition it finds is assigned as DRIVE C:, the second as DRIVE D:, the third as DRIVE E:, etc. The system must boot from the first primary partition it find at hex 80. Thus I do not think that by simply eliminating that first primaty partition will work. I believe you will have to put the 1.2GB drive as the first physical drive and make it a or a portion of it a primary partition. However, if you have a newer BIOS that allows you to boot from any one of the four IDE drives then you can set it to boot from the 1.2GB drive. I have no idea why these stupid programs and OSes, demand to install on drive C:. I have run accross this problem before. Once it is installed, then you can relocate it to wherever you want. I cannot remember for certain, but believe that when I installed DRDOS, it gave me a choice of where to install Personal NetWare. At least the directory name, but think I could have also used the drive letter as well. I am not familiar enough with NetWare 4.x and 5.x to know what can and cannot be done with them. I suspect all the audit files and other security stuff will still have to be installed on DRIVE C:. That is the way PNW does it. I have put PNW's NWCLIENT on DRIVE D: and it worked just fine, but it was originally installed on C:. I do have the books for NetWare 2.x, but that would not be of any help here. PNW is compatible with 4.x. I suggest, you open up the computer and change the two drives around. You will have to change the Master and Slave jumpers on each drive accordingly. At one time my first primary partition was only 12MB, but had to increase the size because of all the junk that insisted on installing itself on DRIVE C:. I could then move it, but it was a real pain. I'll probably get rid of this IDE drive soon when I get another large SCSI, then I can boot from two differnt SCSI drives if I need to. (ID0 & ID1) Unfortunately, IDE drives are assigned before SCSI drives and thus you have to boot from an IDE if one is installed. One last thought, but I am not certain how you can do this without first swapping the drives. You could install the Netware on the 1.2 when it is installed as drive C:, then switch the drives back and use the DRDOS or some other boot loader program and choose which to boot. The problem is in the BIOS. You have to boot from the first drive it finds, unless you have a newer BIOS that allows you to assign which drive is the boot drive. Pat ----- Original Message ----- From: "Florian Xaver" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 11:01 AM Subject: Fw: does DR-DOS dynamically assign the drive letters at boot? > > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: Mike Anderson > An: florianx AT drdos DOT org > Datum: Dienstag, 12. September 2000 18:35 > > > >I am about to upgrade from NW 3.2 to NW 5.1. I have a 20MB DOS partition > on > >the primary drive that is currently assigned the drive letter C. I also > >have a 1.2GB drive that has one primary DOS partition that is currently > >assigned the drive letter D (which has the NWSERVER directory on it). I > >need to use the 1.2GB drive to for the 5.1 installation but I don't think > >that the Novell installation program will allow me to choose drive D for > the > >install. > > > >My question is, does DR-DOS dynamically assign the drive letters at boot? > >If that is the case, I should be able to delete the current C partition, > >reboot the machine to a floppy, make the existing 1.2GB drive bootable > >(which is now C because DOS has dynamically assign that letter to the first > >and only DOS partition) and end up with what I want. _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com