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Nomdo Jansonius wrote:
>
> Next I did: mount /dev/hda6 /dos. 
> Now abiword.tgz survived, but about 10 other .tgz files 
> disappeared completely (even not 0 bytes remaining)! 

/dev/hda6 is very unstable.  Every partition on that drive 
could have similar instability when shared between DrDOS 
and Linux.  
---------------------------------
/dev/hda1               C:                
/dev/hda2               extended            
/dev/hda3   BL1 root
/dev/hda4   swap
/dev/hda5               E:
/dev/hda6   /dos        F:
/dev/hda7               G:
/dev/hdb1   BL2 root
/dev/hdb2   swap
/dev/hdb4               D:                     
---------------------------------

> DR-DOS has put its primary FAT16 on the second HD in hdb4 
> for some reason (I started with DR-DOS on an empty HD, linux 
> partitions were made later).

I suspect that DrDOS numbers the partitions from the opposite
end.  This isn't a problem when DrDOS is alone on the system,
but cohabitation with Linux is problematical.  

It is possible that there is some workaround for this issue;
however, I don't expect to find one.  Only a minority of people 
run DOS and Linux on the same machine, and very few of those 
use DrDOS.  The problem is so limited in application that I
would be surprised if anybody took the time to develop a fix
(although I could be wrong).

> DR-DOS seems not to accept two primary partitions on one HD. 
> After one primary partition has been made, fdisk offers only 
> the option to create (logical drives in) an extended partition. 

After creating the first (primary) partition in DOS (and
leaving the rest of the HD unpartitioned), you can boot 
BL2 (ramdisk) and create three more primary partitions 
(with DOS IDs).  Then, when you return to DOS, you (hopefully) 
will be able to;
---------
format D:
format E:
format F:
---------

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*                                                             *
*  If anybody has an old HD with nothing important on it, I   *
*  would be grateful for some feedback on this.  Is DOS able  * 
*  to format extra primary partitions as described above?     *
*                                                             *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

> What DOS are BL-users using? FreeDos? Other DOS?

I mostly use MS-DOS 6, but I sometimes use MS-DOS 5 or 
PC-DOS 3.3.  Any of the mainstream DOSes (MSDOS, PCDOS)  
are good.  There are risks with an unconventional DOS,
particularly one that doesn't stick to the established
ways of doing things.

Cheers,
Steven