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Re: MSDOS fdisk (slightly off topic)
On Sun, 14 Jun 1998, Shlomo Solomon wrote:
> I have an old 386 that my kids use. Since it used to have LINUX on
> it, it still boots with LILO. After installing a new Windoze scanner
> driver(TWAIN), the LILO screen changed to LIL- and a locked up
> computer. I don't know how or why this happened, but after wasting a
This is one of the reasons for which the Windoze maker islikely going to
go to court even after the browser wars will be over. Windoze is notorious
for re-installing the boot record or at least making assumptions about its
size and location. This affects certain releases (notably, those meant to
work on a virgin disk, not the upgrades).
This means, that if you install software on such a Windoze that co-lives
with other OS-es (which it should NOT - always use an 'upgrade' version
for this if you can), you are asking for troubles by answering the
delicate question whether to 'reboot' after install, with yes, if booting
with LILO or ANY boot manager that requires boot sectors larger than 512
b. (LILO needs about 4 if I remember well). Actually, there is no
guarantee for nothing at all, and there are certain (obsolete) large hard
disks that were unusable with Windows because they had drivers installed
by their own boot record. The reason is the same.
I happen to know a PC technician who has ripped out a large amount of his
hair while virus-hunting and doing other things with such a system. The
system was fixed when the HDD was changed to one that did not need a
special driver.
regards,
Peter