-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Wednesday 26 November 2003 2:44 pm, Adam wrote: <whack> > > When running from the first CD you can access the same tools to remove > > the distribution as you would use to install it in the first place. It > > saves you having to buy proprietary software (Partition Magic etc) to do > > something that can be done with Free (as in beer) Open Source tools. > > Those tools will run from the disks and are loaded in memory to > > accomplish the tasks required, just as any other operating system's > > installer does it. > > Sorry, I have never heard of any application that runs when the hard > drive contains no data at all. Sounds a mystery.
Really? You've never seen a new system at the point at which the processor is mounted, the motherboard is connected to the power supply, CD-ROM and/or floppy or "flash" drive is connected but no hard drive at all and the point of the exercise is to load the BIOS onto a blank new CMOS? Not much experience with freshly assembled systems? You say you've never heard of any application that runs when the hard drive contains no data at all, but just because you haven't doesn't mean it isn't a fact. It just means you've never seen such. I've not seen everything there is to see regarding personal computers either, but I've never said something doesn't exist because of my lack of knowledge. > I have not heard of another operating system that does this either. I can name a few; Knoppix or PCLinuxOS for starters. You don't even need a hard drive, they'll run from the CD and memory. BTW on a newly assembled system destined to be a Windows machine the first thing that happens is exactly what I was trying to tell you, the installer utilities mount an initial ram disk into memory, locate and identify all hardware available that the developers decided they could deal with at install, then you get to partition and format the hard drive(s). It's the exact same thing that you can do with CD-1 of a Mandrake Linux install, or really any operating system, except Mandrake is capable of setting many more types of file systems than the Windows installer can. Remember, loaded into memory. You don't need to touch the hard drives until you know what you want written to them, and in what form. > > I don't think you thought that question through or the answer would have > > been blatantly obvious. > > Pardon? Discussions would dry up if everything was obvious. Read the above Adam. It _is_ obvious that a hard drive doesn't require an operating system to be formatted and partitioned or you wouldn't be able to add a hard drive to an existing system when the original dies. It's also obvious that an operating system doesn't require a hard drive or there would never have been any of the original game consoles. Not everything is an X-Box; the Play Station had no hard drive, the Nintendo 64 had no hard drive but they most definitely had an operating system. > Not only that, but I think I read that the documentation was written > by a number of different people. This has exactly what to do with the issue? Or are you trying to say something else? So tell me; am I kicking a seriously abused equine here or are you actually trying to learn something? If the latter; there are a lot more intelligent people reading this list than I, so ask your questions. You may be surprised. Charlie - -- Edmonton,AB,Canada User 244963 at http://counter.li.org Mandrake Linux release 9.2 (FiveStar) for i586 kernel 2.4.22-21mdk 15:09:18 up 6 days, 5:49, 1 user, load average: 0.36, 0.30, 0.22 Lord, defend me from my friends; I can account for my enemies. -- Charles D'Hericault -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/xSvTG11CaRuZZSIRAgudAJwMuHfAFjurrQJUFrPO/vNWhbZX7QCgqkqT IrE60usZpjgRPMollRpQClQ= =eUrx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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