Baslinux mailing list

["David Moberg" <davidjmoberg AT lycos.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
 
> I am thinking of not putting Win98 back at all, and switching to FreeDOS.
> Have you managed to get FreeDOS emm386 to work with loadlin?  It 
> looked complicated.

I don't use FreeDOS, except in DOSEMU or a similar emulator, so don't
look here for help. Can't you boot using a bootloader or bootdisk?
 
> I did not attempt to write anything to the DOS partition table from linux.
> So what might have caused the DOS (hda) partition table to mess up?

Many possibilites, here's a few:
- partition software malfunction
- buggy operating system
- some odd software, like the 2002 (I believe) version of TurboTax
writes to the partition table
- botched bootloader installation (bootloader goes in same general
sector)

> > A reformat is probably your easiest option for healing the damage.
> > You need a midlevel format. Boot into the floppy version of BL,
> > make sure no hard drive partitions are mounted, then run
> >
> > dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdx
> 
> Does this mean I am overwriting the hdx (hda) partition table with nulls?

Yup (and everything else on hda, so be warned).

> Is there any backup copy of it I could try to access instead, 
> somewhere on the disk?

Not to my knowledge. If there's a backup copy, it will likely be
in a nonstandard place. Check your partition tool documentation.
If there's no mention of a backup you can assume there is none.
Finding it will be worse than the proverbial needle in a haystack.

> Partition with linux or FreeDOS fdisk, format with DOS format? Is 
> there some advantage to linux fdisk even for DOS?  MS DOS fdisk I 
> think will only make one partition but FreeDOS makes four.  We have 
> been using Partition Magic - does this also mid-level format?

Don't know about Partition Magic. Can it help repair the part. table?
You should use plain old ms/dr/pc-dos fdisk, since DOS has trouble
with primary partitions according to James. Use it to set up the
partitions as it sees fit. Then you can reformat one or more of those
partitions with mke2fs or similar to make it into a linux partition.

> Would DOS fdisk also be able to wipe out the partition table? 

It just modifies the existing one I think.

> Is the partition table something near the start of the disk like the 
> boot sector?

Yes. According to the Microsoft knowledge base, it starts in the first
sector at offset 0x01BE. That would be 446 bytes past the beginning of
the disk.

> Linux seems to keep several backup copies of the 
> equivalent.

Are you thinking of the superblock? That's completely different.

> I was hoping not to have to reinstall Win98 but I do have it on its 
> own computer and can drag it out if I need to view a WORD file.  I 
> no longer need Win98 for the scanner or CD burner.  Do you know of 
> some way to install Win98 so that it will do nothing except run the 
> WORD viewer program and print with it?  How small can it be made?

You're probably stuck with the "Compact" install option, unless you
want to do a lot of hacking to the system files, which is very hard
and time-consuming.

David
-- 
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10