*BSD News Article 16614


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From: ivie@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Windows/NT & the boot block
Message-ID: <1993May29.153921.68714@cc.usu.edu>
Date: 29 May 93 15:39:21 MDT
Organization: Utah State University
Lines: 27

For what it's worth, here's what I have seen Windows/NT do to the partition
table during installation:

	- Using the Relative Sectors and Number Of Sectors fields, rebuild
	  the physical starting and ending locations of the partition.

	- If more than one partition is marked bootable, change the non-DOS
	  partition to be non-bootable.

	- Sort the partition table so that the partitions appear in the order
	  that they reside on the disk.

By judiciously dropping NOPs into the multi-os boot block that I'm using
(BOOTANY), I have been able to build a boot block that survives the
Windows/NT installation process. I have had to do the following to the
boot block:

	- Make it not stop displaying the menu when it encounters a
	  non-bootable partition.

	- Make it attempt to boot the specified partition whether or not
	  it is marked bootable in the partition table.

Other boot selectors might need different modifications.

Roger Ivie
ivie@cc.usu.edu