Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 17:37:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Matt Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [LIB] OT: 30GB BIOS barrier on Dell Dimension
Philip Nienhuis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Date: > >Matt Hanson wrote: > >> Thanks for all the feedback on this guys. I'm not receiving list >> posts to my Hotmail account, and >> have notified Dan... so I got this Yahoo account for a backup. >Ah, that's why the lines in your message are not wrapped at 72 or so >chars. So I had to edit a bit to get the quotes right, sorry. Yeah... I was looking at that when I was composing, and noticed Yahoo is set up for HTML in outgoing email. I think I can switch that off. But guess what... I connected the 120GB WD HDD to the primary plug as master on the primary IDE channel on the MB, booted the system with 2 Partition Magic floppies, and PM saw the entire 120GB disk! Previously I had installed that drive via the PCI controller card, and ran PM on it from within WinME booted from the 10GB HDD, and then created a 10GB FAT32 at the >end< of the 120GB HDD. That 10GB partition was for running Ghost, and creating an image of the 10GB saved to that 10GB partition on the 120GB HDD as a backup. So I went ahead and installed W2000 directly on the 120GB HDD via 4 setup floppies after running PM to create a 5GB primary NTFS partition at the beginning of the drive, and a primary 100GB NTFS partition after that that fills up to the 10GB FAT32 partition at the end. >> But then I was thinking I could repartition the 10GB HDD into 2 5GB >>partitions, and then use >> PowerQuest's BootMagic to boot either OS. But BootMagic has a >>warning about enabling boot from an >> NTFS partition saying that it may cause data corruption on the >>existing 10GB HDD. >> >> So I'm considering installing W2K to a >Fat32< partition on the 10GB >>HDD, and using the 120GB HDD as >> an NTFS data drive to take advantage of NTFS support for writing >4GB >>files. But then I don't know >> if I can get BootMagic to hide the NTFS drive with WinME is booted. >>Will WinME just ignore the NTFS >> formatted HDD, or might leaving it visable cause problems for WinME? >You can have a FAT32 WinME boot drive (primary, C:) and then install >Win2K in a logical partition (D:). >First install WinME in C:, then Win2K in D:, and Win2K will put its >boot loader + boot manager in C: and as WinME doesn't know about NTFS it >won't be bothered. (Don't be put off by FDISK knowing about NTFS; it >just knows the NTFS partition type but can't do anything with it). > >On my desktop I use Air-Boot. This is very flexible freeware, it can >hide any partition and has a MBR virus protection scheme. It can also >boot from USB drives CD-ROMs, floppies and -if I'm not mistaken- other >harddisks. (But the author doesn't like people working for US govt, so >if you do.....) >I use it because it is probably the only boot mgr around that can boot >OS/2 from a logical partition yet doesn't need a primary partition >slot. >http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/util/system/air-bootv102_en.zip Okay... I've just downloaded that file. I'm hoping it will install to either the 10GB or 120GB HDD, and so it can see both drives. While writing, I now have the 120GB set up as slave on the secondary IDE channel, and at least WinME on the 10GB can see it. So that's good. I also notice that my old copy of Norton Ghost doesn't run on a W2K NTFS drive, so I can't backup to an image file. Do you know if the newer ones will Philip? Or maybe you or someone else can suggest a freeware imaging program that will do the trick. I'll search the archives and net if not. Do you think I'll have any problems having set up W2K on 2 primary partitions on the 120GB? I'm guessing it shouldn't matter that I didn't choose an logical partition. It's a bit of a puzzlement that the Dell can now see the entire 120GB HDD. But as we've seen in the past, like what Raymond experienced, you just never know what a bit of experimentation can come up with without any obvious explanation. >If you install Win2K anyway and use it to partition the 120 GB HD, you >might do without any disk manager at all. As soon as the proper entries >have been put in the MBR, chances are that other operating systems >(e.g., DOS + Win9x/ME) will see the entire disk. >From what I understand the 120GB HD is empty, so it wil only cost some >time to experiment. >And afterward you can install WinME somewhere and use Win2K CD-ROM >and/or recovery console to restore Win2K's boot mgr. I've decided to leave WinME as set up now on the Dell, and the entire 10GB HDD untouched. With the 120GB now fully recognized for some reason, it looks like what I've described here will work. I've still got to deal with a boot loader though, and the FAT32 10GB HDD w/WinME doesn't see the 120GB HDD NTFS partitions. So hopefully I can get some boot loaded to install from FDD. And I'm hoping the system won't have aqny problems booting the 120GB that's set up as slave on the secondary IDE channel. >I'd say: enough suggestions, time to give it a try? Si.... bueno! Philip __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail ************************************************************** http://libretto.basiclink.com - Libretto mailing list http://www.silverace.com/libretto/ - Archives -------TO UNSUBSCRIBE------- Reply to any of the list messages. 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