Thomas Mueller wrote:
> (begin quote)
> The partition table in the MBR (and IDE drives, I think) can contain
> up to four entries for "primary" partitions. If there are logical
> partitions, one of these entries is a "container" partition for the
> logical partitions. There is not a problem accessing more than one
> primary partition under DOS. I have a 386 with MS-DOS, PTS-DOS and
> FreeDOS on separate bootable partitions. Each OS can readily access
> all three partitions.
> Ken Martwick
> (end of quote)
> I didn't know DOS (and OS/2?) could recognize more than one primary par-
> tition on a hard drive, though I wondered how DOS or OS/2 would decide
> which primary partition to recognize when booting from a different
drive.
> OS/2 Warp 3 documentation says multiple primary partitions on a hard
disk
> are all drive C (on a one-hard-disk system), with only one being acces-
> sible at a time. What are your drive letters, and do the at least two
> non-C DOSes like to boot from non-C drive?
> Which DOS do you like best, and how if FreeDOS doing? Is FreeDOS up to
> serious business? Ever run Arachne under FreeDOS?
The (primary) partition that is booted is the one that is marked "boot-
able" in the MBR. I have a PD program called "activate" that easily
changes the bootable partition. Anyone who wants it can write me off-
list. Please let me know if it must be uuencoded.
Whichever of the versions of DOS that I boot acts as if it is on drive C,
and sees the other partitions as D and E. Files can readily be copied
from one partition to the other. Note that this is complicated if the
HDD is very large. Many OS's can't boot from a partition above cylinder
number 1024.
Please note that the only experience I've had with OS/2 was a failed
attempt to install it from a free IBM CD that came from DDJ. This, obvi-
ously, was not a good first impression! As for the DOS version I like,
PTS-DOS v.6.51 seems to be very strong and compact; I have used it on a
number of different PC's for several years with only one problem. As for
FreeDOS, the version I have is not really usable, though it is probably
about two years old. The major problems seemed to be with the command
processor. I was not even tempted to try Arachne with FreeDOS because
the computer is monochrome.
Ken Martwick
