Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!usc!sdsu!crash!pnet01!jca From: jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: booting Minix from 3.5" floppy Message-ID: <426@crash.cts.com> Date: 24 Sep 89 22:36:09 GMT Sender: root@crash.cts.com Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA Lines: 52 umbaugh@hcx (Dr David L. Umbaugh) writes: >Somebody writes: > What I did when I made a 3.5" boot image to a 720K 3.5" disk was this. The > system configuration was as follows... > > Drive A: CMS (Epson) 1.2 Mb 5.25" drive > Drive B: Mitsumi 720K 3.5" drive > > I went to the makefile that makes the image and set the destination > to image to /dev/at1. Worked perfectly. I don't know if anybody > has gotten to work 100% of the time much less boot from them. But > I can tell you that if you're using a compatable controller, making > a 720K 3.5" boot disk is simple. >But if the drives are reversed (drive 0 is 3.5") and the system boots >only from hard drive or floppy drive 0 you need a 3.5" bootdisk to >even get started. Then, its not so easy. In my system here, I don't use 3.5" boot disks. I was constructing this disk for a friend of mine who does not have a 1.2 Mb 5.25" floppy drive (I have the 1.2 Mb AT 1.3 distribution). It worked flawlessly. I stuck the 3.5" disk in his boot drive and it worked with no problem. I admit that I did open up my computer, swap the drives, and changed the AT BIOS set up RAM to test it before I tried it on a friend's machine, but it worked just the same. Until Minix is available on 3.5" media for PC compatables, you are going to need a machine with a 5.25" drive and a 3.5" drive to construct a boot disk. I was merely pointing out that there's no real black magic in making the boot disk if you have both types of drives. It is true that to originally make the 3.5" boot disk you first have to have a 5.25" drive as drive A: (logical drive 0), a hard drive (if you don't want to spend a while and some disk swapping to make the boot image), and a 3.5" drive as drive B: (logical drive 1). I personally have no qualms about opening up my, or anyone else's for that matter, computer to get something to work. I did that all the time puttering around with my OMTI 5520A in an attempt to make an xt_wini.c for it. Unfortunately I never got the thing to work. I finally managed to get a WA3-16 (a WD1003-WA2 clone) card which at_wini.c is very happy to converse with. The moral of the story is that in dealing with Minix, you can't be afraid to open up your machine to tinker with dipswitches, swap a card, etc. Minix is not for the layman computer illiterate user to begin with. /*--------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Flames: /dev/null (on my Minix partition) *--------------------------------------------------------------------------* * ARPA : crash!pnet01!jca@nosc.mil * INET : jca@pnet01.cts.com * UUCP : {nosc ucsd hplabs!hd-sdd}!crash!pnet01!jca *--------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Note : My opinions are that...mine. My boss doesn't pay me enough to * speak in the best interests of the company (yet). *--------------------------------------------------------------------------*/