Good idea! I may install another hdd to completely devote to dos. -- A message from the system administrator: "I've upped my priority, now up yours!" On Sun, 6 Apr 2003, Doug wrote: > (sending in 2 parts because this is too big ) > > Regarding filesystems and reinstalls ... > > > I would if I had the disk space. I currently have > > a 1.5gb and a 700mb drive. > > After doing way too many reinstalls ... and switching > filsystem formats etc ... I came up with a great way > to make it almost painless to reinstall and also to > fix the partitions, or reformat, without needing any > floppy drive or cdrom drive. Everything is done from > the hard drive. It works like this: > > I put a small DOS partition on every machine now. > I think this is good to have because some things > just need DOS, for example many BIOS update programs. > But there is another reason. Slackware has a slick > thing called install.zip ... it's basically a root > file system that is the *same* as booting from the > slack floppies BUT it sits on a DOS partition. It > uses the UMSDOS file system, which overlays onto > a FAT (DOS) file system. Why have this? If any of > my normal partitions get screwed up, or if I want > to change from reiserfs to ext3 or xfs or jfs ... > I can just boot this root file system from hda1 > and it doesn't touch the rest of my disk until > I execute commands. So I can repartition, or > reformat, copy stuff around, fix problems, or > whatever. > > This is what I do now ... I set up a partition > scheme that looks like this .... > > 1) Small DOS partition. It serves multiple uses. > First it boots DOS for whatever purpose. > Second it runs the NT bootloader ... it can > start windows 2000 or DOS ... third it has > the UMSDOS slackware install root disks > (see this readme) ... > > ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-9.0/rootdisks/install.zip.README > > I have to basically start with a clean disk, > but once I have the above UMSDOS filesystem > install, I include it in LILO ... so any time > I can boot a busybox based "rescue" disk which > is actually the slackware install root disk! > If *anything* goes wrong with my slackware, > I just boot that and then I can mount the > other partitions and fix, reformat, whatever. > > This is how I did this: I mount a target drive > as slave from a working system. I then use > cfdisk on the target drive and create a small > DOS partition, and partitions for windows and > slackware. I move that target drive to be > master and boot with a bootable DOS floppy. > I do an FDISK /MBR on the new disk to clear > out the master boot record and set up a new > DOS master boot record. I reboot to make sure > DOS is bootable. At that point the system > will boot directly into DOS. > > 2) Then I attach a CD-ROM drive and install the > slackware, making sure I include the DOS > partition in the LILO configuration. After I > am done installing slack, I copy that > install.zip to the DOS partition and unzip > it (from within linux). It creates a linux > directory in the DOS partition. I then copy > the kernel from the slackware root partition > into that umsdos directory: > > cp /boot/vmlinuz /dos/linux > > Then I edit the lilo.conf and add this umsdos > partition to my boot options like this: > > # this is the normal root file system > image = /boot/vmlinuz > root = /dev/hda5 > label = Slackware-Linux > read-only > > # this is the dos/windows boot > other = /dev/hda1 > label = DOS-Windows > table = /dev/hda > > # this is the busybox/umsdos file system > image = /dos/linux/vmlinuz > root = /dev/hda1 > label = Busybox-Rescue > read-write > > Note that this last item points to /dev/hda1 > which the first partition, and is a small > DOS partition where I have unzipped that > install.zip file from slackware. Also note > that it's listed as "read-write" rather than > the usual "read-only" because it's not an > ext2 file system, it's UMSDOS overlayed on > top of DOS. > > 3) After I have LILO booting both the normal > slackware and the busybox/rescue from the > DOS partition, I install windows. Windows > 2000 install the NT bootloader into the > DOS partition automatically. When I select > DOS/Windows from LILO it launched the NT > bootloader, which in turn displays its > own menu allowing me to boot either DOS > or Windows ... > > (continued on next message) > > -- Doug > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup >
