Re: making dos partitions: help
On Wednesday 15 May 2002 07:11, Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-05-15 at 06:57, Dan wrote:
> > Hello! I need to create a simple bootable fat32 partition.
> > Partitioning, making it active, writing correct MBR isn't a real problem.
> > Formatting that partition is trivial as well- mkdosfs -F32 device, but
> > then the REAL problem begins. Is there a simple way to transfer usual
> > msdos bootloader + system files without messing with BPB/FAT? I've
> > tinkered with mkdosfs, replacing its dummy bootloader with msdos one. It
> > does start, but still refuses to boot io.sys, due to io-errors (yes, I've
> > placed io.sys + msdos.sys correctly and double-checked the FAT).
> >
> > What's the solution? Of course, using dosemu + dexe to run "sys source:
> > target:" still works, but I'd like to do that using native linux tools.
> > Another way is to create a small bootable partition and use dd to
> > read/write image, but this way will work for this particular case only,
> > cause some specific info is still located in BPB/FAT table. :(
>
> I think booting from a DOS floppy and saying "format/s c:" or
> "sys c:" are the only legal methods. The DOS partition starts
> below cylinder 1023, right??
Hmm.. seems like I've gotta stick with dosemu after all. :(
Creating the bootimage with "sys c: exitemu" in autoexec.bat does the trick,
of course when target drive is mapped using $_hdimage in dosemu.conf.
The point of it was: if mkdosfs actually can create valid fat32 partition and
write (mostly) correct BPB/bootloader, there should be a way to do the rest.
The problem is mkdosfs's BS layout doesn't follow all specs. For example,
bs32DriveNumber (0x40) is empty, but it shouldn't be. There're also some
minor differences and I guess that's what confuses msdos bootloader.
Unfortunately, I can't contact mkdosfs' current maintainer. :(
-- Dan
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: