At 11:35 03.03.98 -0500, you wrote: >Hi Helmut; > >I am not really much of an expert in this sort of problem but would like >to see if I can help you to have a little better understanding of what >is going on with your system (as best as I understand anyway)... > >The ROM portion of DOS loads and executes the mbr, including accessing >the disk drive for the mbr code. Thus for your system to boot, it is >necessary for the ROM code to be able to find the files needed by lilo >(the files in /boot). > >The was 'created' as a 'normal' disk and not a 'lba' disk. The ROM code >then has to use the 'normal' mode to find the files needed by lilo. If >you change the mode to 'lba' then when the ROM code interprets the disk >structure information to produce the block numbers that should be used >by the drive to seek to the requested files, the resulting numbers are >NOT the blocks where the files are actually located. > >As far as I know the DOS portition of this problem IS not solvable by >any practical method other than reformating the disk under DOS with the >mode set to LBA. It is actually possible to hand edit the disk >structure information used by the DOS based ROM code and I am told that >there are people that have done this but it is anything but a trivial >task! > >IF you do not need to have DOS access to this drive (that would include >Win95 and OS2) you MIGHT be able to do a 'work around'. First I don't >KNOW that this will work and can't quite tell from your posting if you >already have indication that it will not... > >IF the ROM code can load and execute the mbr with the CMOS mode set to >LBA then I think that this will work otherwise it is just a waste of >your time and effort. My suggestion is: > >Set the CMOS to LBA for the drive (this BTW is something that I CAN NOT >do on my own system -- if a drive on my system was formatted in normal >mode then a change to LBA in the CMOS is automatically changed back). > >Boot your system using a Linux boot floppy (rescue/installation) if you >don't have something else. > >Run lilo (note that if you boot Linux such that your hard disk is NOT >the root filesystem (such as is the case with using the >rescue/installation disk) then it is necessary to tell lilo where the >normal root partition is currently mounted (see the lilo HOWTO or man >page) with something like "lilo -r /target" (assuming of course that you >mounted your normal hard disk Linux root filesystem on the rescue disk's >ram filesystem on the directory named 'target'). > >Now AGAIN, I have no idea whether this will work or not. For this to >work it is necessary that 1) the ROM code actually will access the disk >when there is a mode mismatch and 2) that lilo _uses_ that code to >determine what the location of the files that are needed during boot >WILL be. > >I was just going to send this to you privately but I believe that it is >better to subject this to critical review of those that know the lilo >code as well as the details of exactly how the disk information is used >and interpreted by the ROM code. > > >-- >best, >-bill
THANKS, Bill ! My vendor just gave me an updated BIOS version for the motherboard I'm usig (PA2000). Is it a good idea to rewrite the Eprom and then try to boot with the new BIOS ? Or is this rather dangerous and my old BIOS should work anyway ? Helmut -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
