From: charlie@elektro.cmhnet.org (Charlie Smith)
Subject: HELP: co-install OS/2, UNIX, MSDOS ?
Organization: Why do you suspect that?
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 05:20:45 GMT

About a week ago I posted a similar question, and got several helpful
responses.  Here's the situation, I have a 320MB hard disk partitioned
as follows:
 
   P1   MSDOS	20 MB    Primary partition
   P2   UNIX   210 MB    UNIX Partition, this one marked active
   P3   OS/2	90 MB	 Primary partition (now)

The previous question was how to get OS/2 Version 1.3 installed in P3 without
messing with the MSDOS in P1.  The UNIX partition and the MSDOS partition
are already installed and set up.  The UNIX partition is Interactive i386
UNIX Version 3.0, which includes something like the OS/2 boot manager that
always gets control before UNIX boots up - asking you which partition you
want to boot.

At that time, when I tried to install OS/2, it wanted to overwrite the MSDOS
partition, and it complained loudly that it didn't have enough space.

The responders several suggestions all talked about putting OS/2 boot manager
into a 1 MB P4, and then using the OS/2 FDISK to create P3 as "installable"
and to go from there.
................

After a lot of around and around gyration with ill documented OS/2 stuff,
such as FDISK refusing to run without command line parameters, I resorted
to using the Zenith MSDOS 3.30+ which will let you create multiple 
primary partitions on a hard disk.  I set P3 up as a 90 MN primary partition
and deleted the MSDOS P1 primary partition.  Now when I installed OS/2, 
it went exactly where I wanted it to, into P3.  So far so good.

After re-flagging P2 as the active partition, I found that the Interactive
UNIX "boot manager" will let me choose between UNIX and OS/2 just fine,
BUT:  as soon as I recreate the P1 partition as a MSDOS primary partition,
OS/2 refuses to boot; actually, it does boot and then about 5 seconds later
it craps out with a TRAP 00D code and dumps the registers.  It doesn't do 
this if the OS/2 partition is the only primary partition.

I've got to have the MSDOS partition as a primary partition in order to
mount it under UNIX as a file system - this way UNIX and MSDOS running
under UNIX (with vpix) can get to the MSDOS data in P1.  Also, if the 
partition with OS/2 isn't a primary partition then the UNIX boot selector
doesn't think it's bootable and doesn't let you select it.

After all that windup, here's the question:  does anyone know how to get
OS/2 to stop noticing that there is another primary partition when it
boots?

More background:  some digging into past postings about OS/2 and Win/NT 
incompatibilities makes me think that in order for OS/2 boot manager to
be able to offer a partition as bootable, it must have a file of some
sort on the target partition.  This is out of the question for the UNIX
partition for several reasons, not the least of which is that it is not
a FAT based fle structure, and that UNIX is extremely touchy about wanting
it's file systems to be just so.

Any help will be appreciated.  Right now, to boot OS/2 I've got to "delete"
the P1 partition with MSDOS, and to "add" it back to either boot MSDOS or 
to access the MSDOS data from UNIX.  Fortunately, I can do this without
destroying / rebuilding the partition's data.


Charlie Smith   charlie@elektro.cmhnet.org  csmith@dsac.dla.mil  whois ces10
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