Re: Boot Manager
- From: "Teilhard Knight" <teilhk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 21:14:33 -0600
<Vanguard> wrote in message news:pJSdnWnz1_nDyM3fRVn-2g@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Teilhard Knight" <teilhk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:3batv4F4oiuq8U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> <Vanguard> wrote in message news:_bSdnUktWqwRsc3fRVn-jQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> "Teilhard Knight" <teilhk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>> news:3balvoF6j63i4U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Could you recommend a good boot manager, please? I mean, to boot
>>>> several
>>>> OSs, but not relying on Lilo. Not Xosl, because it doesn't work
>>>> together
>>>> with a Drive Overlay.
>>>
>>>
>>> No boot manager that usurps the MBR (master boot record) bootstrap area
>>> will cooperate with a drive overlay manager which also usurps the MBR
>>> bootstrap area. That is why many utilities will not cooperate with each
>>> if they all are trying to overwrite the MBR bootstrap code. You cannot
>>> use, for example, Powerquest (now Symantec) BootMagic with Symantec's
>>> GoBack because both want to be in the MBR bootstrap area. If you
>>> actually need to use the drive overlay manager, you'll need to find a
>>> boot manager that does NOT use the MBR bootstrap area (which means it
>>> might requires its own partition or share one).
>>>
>>> Of the boot managers that I have used, all usurped the MBR bootstrap
>>> area so, sorry, I cannot give a suggestion for one that resides wholly
>>> within a partition. You might need to consider getting a new
>>> motherboard with a newer BIOS that can actually support the large drives
>>> that you want to use, or use an IDE controller card that has newer BIOS
>>> to support the larger drives.
>>
>> Xosl is a boot manager which can be installed in a dedicated partition.
>> However, it is not working for me regardless. It tends to get lost if I
>> boot from floppy or CD.
>>
>> Teilhard.
>>
>
>
> Some boot managers, like BootMagic, usurp the MBR bootstrap code and put
> the rest of the program in a partition. You only get 512 bytes per
> sector, the MBR is sector 0 in track 0 of the first physically
> BIOS-detected drive, and the MBR includes the partition table and drive
> signature bytes. The MBR bootstrap program can only be 460 bytes in size.
> That is damn tiny and just enough to figure out how to read the partition
> table to determine which one is the primary and active-marked partition to
> then load into memory the first sector of that partition (i.e., its
> partition boot sector) to begin loading the operating system. BootMagic
> puts its tiny bootstrap program in the MBR bootstrap area which then runs
> the rest of its program from whatever partition in which it got installed.
> Some boot manager will usurp the rest of the unused track 0 to provide
> additional space for their code rather than putting it into some
> partition.
>
> It sounds like XOSL might not use the MBR bootstrap area at all. There
> wasn't any documentation at its Sourceforge site for me to know how it
> operates. So my guess is that the standard bootstrap code is used in the
> MBR (which, in your case, is the drive overlay manager) which loads the
> program in the boot sector of whichever is currently the active designated
> primary partition in the partition table in the MBR, which then loads XOSL
> under whatever file system was used in that partition.
>
> When booting from a floppy or CD, you are NOT using the bootstrap program
> in the MBR of the hard drive that then loads the boot sector of the active
> primary partition. You are using the boot program on the floppy or CD
> instead, if they have one. You said XOSL won't cooperate with using a
> drive overlay manager and that would only occur if XOSL was attempting to
> usurpt the MBR bootstrap area where the drive overlay manager already
> resides. It's been maybe 8 years, or more, since I had to use a drive
> overlay manager and, at that time, it was for some motherboards that were
> already 3 years old.
>
> Since it appears that you must use the drive overlay manager to get the
> full capacity of your hard drive(s) on an old motherboard, and since that
> only runs from the hard drive's MBR bootstrap area so you can use the
> partition's that got created under its geometric translation, we are back
> to:
>
> - Get a new motherboard with a BIOS that handles large drives.
> - Get a controller card for your hard drives that has a BIOS to support
> large drives.
> - Use removable drive bays and put a different OS on each swap drive.
> - Find a boot manager that NEVER touches the MBR bootstrap area (I don't
> know of those).
>
> Maybe there are other boot managers that instead usurp the boot sector of
> the active primary partition listed in the MBR's partition table, or
> simply loads DOS and then runs the boot manager as an application started
> by the Run line in config.sys or loaded by autoexec.bat. However, at that
> point, you could just use FDISK to change which was the active primary
> partition and reboot to it. Even BootMagic's DOS-mode PQboot can do that
> (same effect as using FDISK but simpler to use).
I have read all you have to say in this thread. I realize now I am damned
because none of the solutions you give me are feasible. I need the boot
manager for an old 486. Buying a new motherboard will cost more than the
machine itself. Also, I do not think I will be able to find an ISA card
which gives me access to the entire disk. Perhaps the only solution, as you
say is to select the bootable OS whenever I want to boot it. Problem is I do
not know whether I can boot into a logical partition (I'm running Linux).
Teilhard
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Boot Manager
- From: Vanguard
- Re: Boot Manager
- References:
- Boot Manager
- From: Teilhard Knight
- Re: Boot Manager
- From: Vanguard
- Re: Boot Manager
- From: Teilhard Knight
- Re: Boot Manager
- From: Vanguard
- Boot Manager
- Prev by Date: Re: Session Manager System Error Message
- Next by Date: taskmanager could not open
- Previous by thread: Re: Boot Manager
- Next by thread: Re: Boot Manager
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
