denis bonnenfant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi,
> I tried to install unattended some PC with 40 GB deskstar IBM drives,
> and I had a problem : win2k files are copied on HD, but it doesn't
> boot. I tried 3.5 and 4.0 dos bootdisk and the problem is the same.
> Looks like the MBR is not written on the disk (one of these disks was
> previously installed with linux and a kernel is still booting whith
> lilo, even after the format and file copy process of the unattended
> bootdisk !)
There are two reasons this could happen.
1) Did you answer yes when Unattended offered to "Replace Master
Boot Record"? If not, you might still have LILO (or nothing) as
your MBR, which is probably not what you want.
2) Did you let Unattended partition the disk automatically? If not,
the Linux partition might still be the "active" partition. The
standard DOS/Windows MBR locates the first active partition and
chain-boots the operating system there. That had better be your
Windows partition or Windows is not going to boot.
This probably has nothing to do with the size of the disk; that would
have a different failure mode than booting Linux.
It is true that the stock DOS/Windows MBR cannot boot anything beyond
the first 8 gigabytes, and possibly not even that depending on your
BIOS. This is why, by default, Unattended creates a 4G partition at
the beginning of the drive and tells Windows Setup to extend it later.
(Thus guaranteeing that the boot sectors are close to the beginning of
the drive.) The FreeDOS folks may have an MBR which supports LBA, but
I am not sure... And it is not easy to write such an MBR which will
properly support all current and older systems.
- Pat
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