Hi Jerome,
I basically wonder about something like a third choice, next to
"auto-fdisk & auto-format" and "exit to DOS", which lets the user
run FDISK interactively and then returns to the installer.
It only auto partitions in normal mode when no partitions exist. If partitions
exist and are not usable by DOS, you are sent to FDISK to modify them. If
partitions exists and is usable by DOS, partitioning is skipped. Or, use
advanced mode to not auto-partition a drive without partitions.
The installer will not proceed beyond the partitioning phase of installation
until there is a partition that will be usable by FreeDOS.
The usable partition is only formatted if it is not readable and requires
formatting. It does not reformat a drive that is readable by DOS.
Whether in advanced mode or normal mode, neither partition or formatting occurs
without a prompt to the user.
So basically the trick is that steps which have already been
done by the user or by an earlier install are indeed skipped
and the trick to continue after "exit to DOS" is to manually
do whatever you want to do manually, then boot the install
medium again, or start the install tool again, without the
need to pass special arguments regarding where to continue?
Good to know! Now I wonder how it could be advertised better,
because "exit to DOS" sounds a bit like aborting or giving up
the install process. One thing the installer could do when that
option is selected would be to show a final message to the user
after leaving full screen mode, with instructions on how to
proceed. Another thing would be to give "exit to DOS" another
name which somehow implies the possibilities to continue :-)
The installer never wipes. It only partitions and formats drives when required.
Thanks :-)
However, if a previous version of DOS is installed on the drive, it will prompt
to backup those files along with any of the conflicting system files and
directories.
Nice :-)
To install non-destructively (for example, if you
already did FDISK + FORMAT + SYS, and don't want the installer
to run SYS again) you can run this:
SETUP ADV
If I understand you correctly, it will automatically
not run FDISK or FORMAT anyway, when I already have,
so the difference would only be in asking me whether
to write boot sectors when the ADV option got passed?
If the installer already has that ability, it could be advertised
more :-)
You mean like the ability to switch to and from advanced mode without exiting
the installer?
No, just the ability to continue where one has left
by that "exit to DOS" choice in any of the dialogues
which ask the user whether to do large impact things.
Which already is there, which is good to know :-)
Regards, Eric
PS: Thanks for the new monthly test distro update! :-)
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