Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!mcvax!ukc!warwick!expya!ast
From: ast@cs.exeter.ac.uk (Andrew Stratton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Hard Disk Auto Boot Bypass
Message-ID: <1233@expya.cs.exeter.ac.uk>
Date: 9 Aug 89 13:30:58 GMT
References: <8908041913.AA02298@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <484@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> <667@opal.tubopal.UUCP>
Reply-To: ast@expya.UUCP (Andrew Stratton)
Organization: Computer Science Dept. - University of Exeter. UK
Lines: 19

In article <667@opal.tubopal.UUCP> alderaan@tubopal.UUCP (Thomas Cervera) writes:
>
>  By the way, why does TOS look for a floppy disk to boot FIRST, even if a
>hard disk is connected & on line ? Wouldn't it be better to boot from the
>floppy disk _only_when_the_Alternate_key_is_pressed_ ? Doing that you could
>get rid of this real frustrating wait period if no disk is in the drive.

	I have two (possibly useful) things to say about this. 

	1. The disk drive atkes less time if a warm reset is used.
	2. If no attempt is made to access the disk drive, then the system
		won't know that there is one available, and will disallow
		acces to Dsik Drive A.


	Check this if you want, but that is the expreince I have had with
TOS 1.0

	Yours Andy.S