Re: Bootable MSDOS filesystem from Linux

[David Wright <d.wright@open.ac.uk>]

Quoting Dwayne C . Litzenberger (dlitz@cheerful.com):
> On Mon, Dec 20, 1999 at 07:23:34PM +0100, Mirek Kwasniak wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 20, 1999 at 06:56:42PM +0100, Michelle Konzack wrote:
> > > MK>> get IO.SYS to take up the first few sectors of the disk. 
> > > MK>      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > > MK>      This was needed in pre MS DOS 6.0 (or even 5.0) time.
> > > MK>
> > > MK>Now you need a proper boot (and maybe master boot) sector and (I'm not
> > > MK>shure) not fragmented IO.SYS ...
> > > MK>
> > > MK>Mirek
> > > IO.SYS is needed for WinSuck95.
> > Yes it's needed but you said "first few sectors of the disk",
> > no just copy it into partition.
> > Mirek

> If I format a floppy in DOS, then just copy IO.SYS A:\ (and then
> command.com), it boots.  When I do the same under Linux, it won't.  What I
> need is to get a win9x hard drive partition bootable while running off a
> Linux boot disk.  It has been mentioned that I need a proper boot sector. 
> How exactly do I get it (i.e. what do I put in the bs= and count= fields
> in dd, and do I use raw disk (sda) or partition(sda1), etc, etc?)
> 
> Sorry for being so dumb in this field... :)

Perhaps the best idea would be to download J David Bryan's document
on "Direct Boot into...". Unfortunately I only have hard copy of
Sean Edmison's version which includes linux (presumably he has left
Rice so www.owlnet.rice.edu/~sedmison/directboot.html is stale.
But as your queries are mainly micros~1 oriented, this may not matter.
There's a lot of info on their startup files and, very importantly,
the filename juggling that you *must* respect when copying files to
their partitions.

Cheers,

-- 
Email:  d.wright@open.ac.uk   Tel: +44 1908 653 739  Fax: +44 1908 655 151
Snail:  David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA
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