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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.  

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