*BSD News Article 16728


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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
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From: andreas@knobel.GUN.de (Andreas Klemm)
Subject: Re: [NetBSD] installing with DOS
Organization: Andreas Klemm, D-4040 Neuss 21
References: <C7vu5z.EtM@cvt.stuba.cs> <1ud4r6$l80@stimpy.css.itd.umich.edu> <1993May31.094722.68786@cc.usu.edu>
Message-ID: <1993Jun2.022219.1080@knobel.GUN.de>
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 02:22:19 GMT
Lines: 57

In <1993May31.094722.68786@cc.usu.edu> ivie@cc.usu.edu writes:

|When you tell NetBSD to not overwrite the DOS partition, it puts the A5 
|partition-type marker in the partition table, but leaves the rest of the
|partition entries zero.

|I wound up doing the following:

|	- Start with DOS only on the drive, at the _end_ of the drive.

|	- Using Norton, suck the DOS boot block and partition table from
|	  track 0 into a file.

|	- Install NetBSD on the first part of the hard drive, letting it store
|	  its bootblock in block 0.

|	- Using Norton, suck the bootblock off and stash it in a file.

|	- Copy the DOS bootblock that you stashed back onto the harddrive
|	  using Norton.

|	- Hand-edit the partition table to add the NetBSD partition.

|Here comes the fun part:

|	- Copy the NetBSD boot block that you stashed in a file onto the
|	  harddisk in the DOS partition; in other words, make a DOS file
|	  on the hard disk that contains the NetBSD boot block.

|	- Using Norton and a calculator, locate the physical address (cylinder,
|	  head, sector) of the file.

|	- Using Norton, build a bogus one-sector partition that points at
|	  the DOS file.

|	- Of course, make the DOS file containing the NetBSD boot block
|	  System, Hidden, and Read-Only.

|When you boot the bogus partition, it will read the NetBSD boot block from the
|DOS file and jump to it. The boot block will then read block 0 from the hard
|disk, find the NetBSD partition, and boot it.

|Not much fun, but it works...

|And with just a few hours more, I was able to make the boot block survive
|the Windows/NT installation procedure.

Somebody out there who makes an automatically installation program ?
Or would it be possible to put the NetBSD boot block in the beginning
of the NetBSD partition and jump to that location ?

Would that be easier for an installation program ?
-- 
----  Andreas Klemm  -------    /////// andreas@knobel.GUN.de \\\\\\\
private : +49 2137 12609        D-4040 Neuss 21 (Norf), Germany
at work : +49 2173 3964 161     Wiechers & Partner   Datentechnik GmbH
Telefax : +49 2173 3964 222     Abteilung Unix Support, D-4019 Monheim