From: eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad)
Subject: Re: Setting up bootable DOS pertition by hand
Organization: Nanyang Technological University - Singapore
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 06:31:53 GMT

In article <4500@hq.hq.af.mil> rick@postmaster@hq.af.mil (Rick Weldon) writes:

: I want to be able to boot DOS as well as 386BSD from the 
: HD. I haven't seen much discussion on this specifically.
: Most of the discussion seems to be around accessing DOS 
: from 386BSD.

I have posted an article tittled MSDOS and 386BSD 0.1
There was no responses. I believe there are not many interested parties.
I think the potential is large but not exploited yet.
	I am hoping you could join us in solving this problem.

: 
: My questions though are centered around getting DOS to boot.
: 
: I tried to use the automated install script and it blew up.
: I did as the release notes suggested and used fdisk to create
: a DOS partion on the beginning of the drive, but install munged
: things, so I ended doing a manual install to the whole disk.
: I used Chris Demetriou's method to install everything on seperate
: partitions. Boot from HD-- no problem --all is well.
: 
: Now what I want to do is set up that DOS partition by
: hand. I want to use the first 30Mb of the disk and leave the
: rest for 386BSD. I am assuming that I will have to write the
: disklabel by hand taking into consideration the DOS partition.
: 
: So I am assuming something like this: 
: 
: wd0a 32 Mb into the disk -- to 37 Mb
: wd0b 37 Mb to 42 Mb swap
: wd0c whole disk
: wd0d 0 Mb to 30mb for DOS
: wd0h 42Mb to end of disk
: 
: Now the  fun part. 
: 
: 1. If I put DOS on to the first 30 Mb of the 
: drive how does the boot image know where to go to boot 386BSD.
: I would assume that it reads the disklabel and then looks for 
: the kernel image 32 Mb into the disk on the wd0a partition.
: Is this the case?

You must tell it. There are two methods:
1) recommended in the INSTALL.NOTES is to run dos fdisk to set the 386bsd
partition ACTIVE,
2) use other boot programs like bootany from SIMTEL but it did not work for me,
or use shoelace in Minix or linux.
: 
: 2. When I shutdown todos I assume that the shutdown program
: tweaks the boot image to tell it to boot DOS instead, Or 
: simply makes the DOS partition active. If the latter
: is true all I should have to do is run fdisk and de-activate
: the DOS partition to get back to 386BSD. This is where
You are right there.

: things get hazy, I was hoping someone might be able to explain 
: this a little better.  Another words how do I get back and
: forth between DOS and 386BSD. 
: 
: 
: I also remember reading that a lot of people were having trouble
: with the shutdown -to-dos script. A complaint that shutdown
: couldn't make dos bootable or something similar. Was this ever 
: resolved? 
: 
: 
: Any help at all would be appreciated. I was hoping for 
: something like Chris Demetriou's step by step, but edited
: to include how to set up a DOS partition by hand.

It is not so straight forward because there are so many flavours of fdisk in
the MSDOS world. I do not use MSDOS 5, instead DRDOS 5 and MSDOS 4.
	I also use NU and NDD to edit the partition table and recover from
 mistakes. There are a lot of PD disk managers at SIMTEL which could be used
as well.
:
: 
: Please post here.
: I read this group all of the time |-).
: 
: (Have you ever noticed that the people who want the most
: information from a particular group don't read the group.
: They always ask for any helpers to e-mail because they don't have
: time to read the news.) 
I thought you are one of them.
: 
: If anyone cares I'll put the whole thing together and post it.
: I have Chris's step by step. 
I do care and hopefully you would succeed. Good luck.

--
Othman bin Ahmad, School of EEE,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 2263.
Internet Email: eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg
Bitnet Email: eoahmad@ntuvax.bitnet