On Sun, 05 Mar 2000, Adrian wrote:
> OK, I have a theory and a solution that bypasses the floppy boot. For some
reason, the BIOS checks > the checksum of the MBR before loading it, since all
Macro$ systems (including > NT) use a DOS MBR, the system works with Macro$.
Since LILO is definately not a > DOS MBR, it won't recognize it as valid.
I wouldn't be too sure about this: I'm a hardware head, not a programmer, but a
bios checksumming an mbr sounds unlikely, as they would want compatability with
new (unwritten) versions of DOS/WIN, NT etc. AFAIK the boot record has changed
over different dos versions. There's also OS/2, DRDOS, SCO unix, etc.
As for the query someone had about the flash bios. You can upgrade them, if an
upgrade is available. Check the manufacturer's site. The way this is done is to
run a small program from the manufacturer which writes the bios. This facility
is used by the CIH virus to overwrite flash BIOS, usually on April 26th. It's
not a worry for linux users, of course. I removed 175 copies of that virus from
2 pcs on April 23rd, and got straight inot linux with the scare!
--
Regards,
Declan Moriarty.
