NT4/DOS Dual Boot... Not
Harold Norman
by install of MS-DOS 6.22 on a 30GB hard disk.
depressingly, i can see only drive c: from DOS. none
of the other logical partitions are visible.
the only peculiar thing that happened was the procedure
documented in the MS KB for installing DOS and then
using the ERD to fix the boot sector did not go smoothly.
i resorted to 'bootpart' but the problem remains.
any ideas what to look for? to be honest, i am mainly
concerned that something serious might be corrupt which
will bite me on the backside soon enough. less interested
in DOS at this point.
thanks.
-- HN
Blornx
>an initial NT install + service packs was followed
>by install of MS-DOS 6.22 on a 30GB hard disk.
>
>depressingly, i can see only drive c: from DOS. none
>of the other logical partitions are visible.
DOS can read partitions only of FAT16 format and less than 2 GB each.
--
Blornx The Z from my address remove.
Harold Norman
>
> Harold Norman <harold...@worldnet.att.net.INVALID> wrote:
>
> >an initial NT install + service packs was followed
> >by install of MS-DOS 6.22 on a 30GB hard disk.
> >
> >depressingly, i can see only drive c: from DOS. none
> >of the other logical partitions are visible.
>
> DOS can read partitions only of FAT16 format and less than 2 GB each.
Yep. Hence the problem. I have only created six
partitions. All are 2GB or less. Still, I cannot
read anything but the C: drive.
I followed the instructions in the MS KB for adding
DOS to a NT install ( Q# is not handy ; will post
if it will help ). The instructions stated to boot
to floppy, sys c:, use NT ERD to fix boot sector and
then, IIRC, make a change to the boot.ini file.
Things went south at "sys c:" when it took two tries?
The ERD recovery did not work either. "bootpart" saved
my behind ( well, I could have edited the boot sector
manually ).
Okay. The FAT partitions are labeled FAT16B. Does
this cause a problem?
Thx.
-- HN
Harold Norman
i booted to a DOS floppy and started fdisk. the
program only recognized the c: partition and the
existence of an extended partition. however, there
was no information displayed on the extended partition.
the disk size was given as ~8GB ( whatever the max
is at this threshold ). it is a new mobo so one figures
that the BIOS can show large drives ( it is for NT )
w/o a program like EZ-BIOS ( WD has a new name for it ).
the BIOS setup is "Auto" which one hoped would default
to LBA and not Large ( my guess ). i am perplexed.
the boot sector checks out o.k. but i am a non-believer
at this point.
thx.
-- hn
Howard Brazee
What is your LASTDRIVE=?
Are you sure the other partitions are FAT16? NT can use a different FAT
(not FAT32) - is it a variation of FAT16?
Andrew Rossmann
sent to the cited author.]
In article <3A932A...@worldnet.att.net.INVALID>,
harold...@worldnet.att.net.INVALID says...
MS-DOS 6.x only uses the old Int13h routines. It will NOT recognize
anything beyond 8G. Odds are your extended partition is using a newer
format that supports large drives. I believe that started with
Win95/MSDOS 7.
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Ghostrider
Just a necessary question: Were logical partitions formed within the extended
DOS partition?
Blornx
> MS-DOS 6.x only uses the old Int13h routines. It will NOT recognize
>anything beyond 8G. Odds are your extended partition is using a newer
>format that supports large drives. I believe that started with
>Win95/MSDOS 7.
I would use DELPART.EXE (an unsupported MS download?) to get rid of all
the existing partitions, then use MSDOS to format the drive as much as
possible (2 MB x 4), then install NT onto C: and NT can use the
remainder of the space (22 MB) as an NTFS partition. Add MSDOS.
Harold Norman
>
> Just a necessary question: Were logical partitions
> formed within the extended DOS partition?
Yep. I guess from the responses to my plight
that one /should/ be able to see more than the
C: drive from DOS. I figure the problem must
have to do with the BIOS, big drives and DOS.
That is, I figured the new mobo would function
like EZ-BIOS does on older mobos. I will
slam in another hard drive and fool with DOS only
and the BIOS settings for large drives.
Stay tuned. Maybe I will have an answer today
or tomorrow AM.
Thx.
Harold Norman
>
> Could you read the other partitions before you installed NT?
>
> What is your LASTDRIVE=?
Never did install anything else. Booted a CD and
installed NT.
I have not specified LASTDRIVE= and will do so now.
This would be embarrassing if this were the problem.
> Are you sure the other partitions are FAT16? NT can
> use a different FAT (not FAT32) - is it a variation
> of FAT16?
FAT16 for sure. No NTFS. Partition Magic ( from NT4 )
an fool with the partitions all day long, but booting
to DOS still only gets the C: drive.
Hope to format another ( > 8GB ) disk from DOS shortly
to see if the problem is related to the drive mapping
for large drives. Hope that makes sense.
Thx.
-- HN
Harold Norman
Per Andrew's comments:
I think MS-DOS will recognize more than 8GB, but perhaps
it requires a little help. For example, I am writing
this post on a machine with WfWG 3.11 and 2GB, 5GB
and 10GB disks. The 10GB disk required EZ-BIOS from
Western Digital ( came with disk ; there's a new utility
now from WD with large disks ). Earlier today I deleted
a directory accidently and recovered it with Norton Utilities
( for DOS ; ver. 3 ? ). Yep. I am a retro-grouch.
Back to the NT box. I used PTEDIT from Powerquest
( used to be free ? ) and changed the extended partition
type from 0F to 05 ( Extended X to Extended ). Booted
right into DOS and saw ~8GB of drives ( four partitions ).
Added "lastdrive=Z" to config.nt and then saw a couple
more partitions. Now I can move on and actually use
the darn machine.
I hope this is kosher. It would seem that if I
installed DOS first, then these would be the partition
labels ( 06 = FAT and 05 = Extended ) anyhow. Anyone
have comments or links per the partition types? I will
do some surfin' on the 'morrow. It was not apparent
what the difference was b/w 05 and 0F wrt to extended
partitions.
Cheers.
-- HN
Loren Amelang
> FAT16 for sure. No NTFS. Partition Magic ( from NT4 )
> an fool with the partitions all day long, but booting
> to DOS still only gets the C: drive.
>
> Hope to format another ( > 8GB ) disk from DOS shortly
> to see if the problem is related to the drive mapping
> for large drives. Hope that makes sense.
I have two triple-boot machines. The one I set up from a raw drive
with Partition Magic only sees C: in DOS. (DOS has the first 500MB
partition to itself, and can't even see the very next 2G FAT
partition, so I don't think it is the BIOS. The machine which came
preformatted with 2G FAT partitions lets DOS see everything.
Not conclusive, and it has never come to the top of the priority
list to figure out what is going on, but I suspect PM partitions
are not exactly compatible with DOS.
Loren