Re: Installing the other OS by cp -ax

[dman <dsh8290@rit.edu>]

On Tue, Dec 18, 2001 at 04:06:56PM +0100, Emiel Metselaar wrote:
...
| sys c: 

I did this once.  Destroyed the disk!  I don't recommend doing it
again.

The story :
    A few years back I acquired some antique hardware (Intel 8086
    system, also a 286 mobo+cpu and 25MB MFM hard disk, 2 360K
    floppies, and a 486 mobo+cpu+8MB ram).  Of course I wanted to play
    with it and make it as good as I could (I didn't have any other
    stuff either).  I took out the 8086 mobo and (with a little case
    hacking) stuck the 286 in there.  I got the hard drive to work,
    but was booting MS-DOS 3.3 off of a floppy.  When I got the 486
    I stuck it in, but it wouldn't boot most of the time.  With the
    286 in the system I wanted to be able to boot off the hard disk
    and not need a floppy.  I didn't want to reformat it because I had
    already put a bunch of stuff on the disk.  My dad suggested the
    'sys' utility.  So I tried it : ([] denotes an aside, <> denotes
    user action with the machine)

        A:\> sys c:
        Please insert a disk into drive C and press return ...
    [Huh? It _is_ the disk]
            <return>
        Please insert a disk into drive C and press return ...
    [this can't be good]
            <return>
        Please insert a disk into drive C and press return ...
            <alt-ctrl-del>
        Please insert a disk into drive C and press return ...
    [uh-oh, I can't even reboot, ^C and ESC didn't work either]
            <turns off power>
            <turns power back on>
        A:\> C:
        some error message, I don't remember exactly
    [what?  what's happening now?]
        A:\> chkdsk c:
    [wow, this thing is really hosed!]

    Supposedly I could have done a low-level format, then
    repartitioned and formatted the disk, but I still have no idea how
    to do a low-level format.  Instead I got out a screwdriver and
    disected the disk.  (it was free, outdated, and now busted)


I have successfully installed woody, then later win2k on a
single-harddrive laptop.  I made a backup bootdisk before installing
win2k since it doesn't ask before stomping over the MBR.  With that
boot floppy I was able to boot linux again and fix the MBR, and
haven't had any problems with it since.

-D

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