Re: Cloned XP Professional boot partition - and lost the login prompt

From: Tim Staddon (tstaddon_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 05/11/04 

Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 15:58:44 +0100

Pegasus,

The added security of NTFS is, for the most part, totally inappropriate FOR
THIS MACHINE - for my others, which are networked, I do make full use of
NTFS, EFS and a comprehensive backup strategy on the system volume.

I take on various development projects for people, which include such things
as replacing old, bespoke DOS-based applications (some, for example, are
written in DBASE, but I also work with Turbo BASIC applications, serial port
comms tools and so on) where no source code exists, with new Windows-based
versions.

In some cases, restructuring the whole database isn't possible (or the
client doesn't want me to do it), so I might decide instead to emulate the
DOS front end from within VB, simply updating the GUI and retaining the
existing database.

Because of the non-relational way many DOS-based databases were designed in
the first place, I often need to be able to run the original software just
to see how the user interface worked, and get a feel of how they processed
the data.

With very few exceptions, I can tweak them enough to get them to work on
FAT32, and then I'm in a position to save screendumps and so on, from within
XP itself. And hence, compare the development project side-by-side with the
functionality of the original. However, to maximize compatibility, it has a
FAT32 C drive, doesn't have dynamic volumes, and is not RAIDed. So I can
boot to DOS if necessary.

Versatility and compatibility, as far as this PC is concerned, are far more
important than security.

I do have an old Pentium 133 with a 250MB FAT16 hard disk available for
anything that cannot be run on this PC. So far I haven't needed to use it.

"Pegasus (MVP)" <I.can@fly.com> wrote in message
news:eM2%23zJ1NEHA.1420@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
>
> "Tim Staddon" <tstaddon@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:ekHCZC1NEHA.3380@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> > It's FAT32 because I need to boot into DOS to run certain applications.
>
> That's the tail wagging the dog. If you have to boot into DOS
> then you should use a third-party boot manager such as
> XOSL instead of sticking to FAT32 for your system partition.
>
> <snip>
>
>

Relevant Pages

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