X-Apparently-From: Message-ID: <000401c02164$4a553c00$e7881004@dbcooper> From: "Patrick Moran" To: References: <006301c01f76$5bc82820$d18a1004 AT dbcooper> <39C3E4FC DOT 23770 DOT EBB5C07 AT localhost> Subject: Re: DRDOS FDISK Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 11:51:29 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Jonkman" To: Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2000 7:24 PM Subject: Re: DRDOS FDISK > This is what Charles Dye said about > "Re: DRDOS FDISK" on 16 Sep 2000, at 17:01 > > > At 06:29 PM 9/15/00 -0600, "Pat" wrote: > > > DR-DOS can create partitions that are big-time incompatible > > with MS-DOS, possibly resulting in trashed volumes if such > > drives are accessed by The Evil Empire DOS. I don't recall the > > size limit -- 127 megs, perhaps? -- but I'm pretty sure I first > > saw the problem on a Maxtor 7120. ----snip----- Actually. you replied to the wromg person. That was a reply to me. I know this can happen, I saw it a lot on FIDOnet. The gentleman that replied to me, said that he had problems when installing MS crap for DOS after using DRDOS FDISK. Why someone would do this, I have no idea, however, I have done this when checking out things for one reason or another. I'll completely backup my drive C: to tape and install another OS. It might be FreeDOS, RTXDOS. MSDOS, DOS 2.11, or whatever. I have installed MSDOS 5.0 and 6.0 and possibly 6.1 and not run into any problems. However, there is one thing that I do that he may not have done. I usually will format the drive with whatever the native OS I intend to put on the drive. I learned a very long time ago, how flakey and funky. MScrap can be. From what he has described, it appears to be a FORMAT problem rather than FDISK. I don't think people understand the difference between the MBR and BOOT SECTOR and that they are not one and the same. He talked about the DRDOS signature. This is only in the BOOT sector and not in the MBR sector. The MBR does not have a signature, except for the last two bytes of AA 55 or whatever it was that IBM requires and that is also required in the last two bytes of the boot sectors of all partitions. He did not describe an FDISK problem other than cluster size. That can be blamed on to Gates and compay as I explain in my reply to him. I usually use Disk Manager to fix this problem or boot to Linux and use Linux FDISk. I forgot to mention it in my message to him, but he will probably read this message as well. Stupid MS developed DOS 2.0 and at that time most HDDs were 5-10MB in size, so they went with a 12 bit FAT and that has a standard cluster size of 8k or 16 sectors per cluster. MS still uses that and if you have a small partition (I don't recall the limit but it is somewhere around 12MB) it will use FAT 12 and 8k clusters! Other than his remarks about cluster size for small drives, I did not see anything that related to a problem with FDISK. I understand the difficulties that people have understanding things like partitions, formats, types of memory, memory management, etc. So I do not jump on them and correct them. I started my learning way.way, way, back on an IBM 360, used binary entry, hexidecimal entry, paper tape, normal audio cassette tapes, punch cards, etc. So I have a very good background in computers. I learned just about everything there is to APPLE DOS 3.2 and 3.3, long before there was such an animal as an IBM PC. I learned it from the binary code in the boot ROM, to the boot sector, catalog, and track/sector lists. It was not hard to learn MS DOS after this, several years later. I constructed my first PC from bare boards starting in 1976. It was an OSI 6502 system. I ahd to learn the hardware and software and binary coding to construct this system. I had to do the final designing of the systems as there were many optional ways to constuct this computer, including using a MOS 6502, Motorola 6800, and a 12 bit PDP8 microprocessor. Later you could even add a Z-80 to the system! Pat __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com