OS/2 Shareware BBS: 11 Util/11-Util.zip/POLYBOOT.ZIP/README.US

Text File | 1991-04-04 | 14KB | 373 lines

DOCUMENTATION FOR POLYBOOT
==========================

To all native speakers of English: aplogise my English !
To all users, understandig German: read the German docs please;
                   don't ruin your English !

Polyboot is a program inteded to install the poly-boot-capability for
a computer. After correct installation the poly-booter will ask the
user during a harddisk boot which operating system to use. The user
is given about 3 seconds to select one of these OS; after that time-out
the computer will boot the default OS, which can be selected during
installation and also changed afterwards. Experience was made with
OS/2 (german IBM versions 1.10 and 1.20) and PC-DOS (3.30 and 4.01 also
german versions from IBM), but it should be possible to poly-boot
UNIX (XENIX) or CP/M-86 also if they use own partitions on harddisk
(not yet tested).

This documentation is separated into five chapters:


      1. Comments From The Author

      2. Preparations for POLYBOOT

      3. Use Of POLYBOOT

      4. Utility Programs PATCH and VERSION

      5. Closing



1. Comments From The Author
---------------------------

This program is distributed from the author "as is" as

              Public Domain

The author will not be responsible for damages or losses of *ANY* kind
occuring during or after use of this program. This program was developed
on a NoName AT-386 under OS/2 and tested afterwards under PC-DOS 3.30
(german IBM version) on the same machine. It was run on several AT-286,
386SX without problems occuring. This Version was developed for alternate
Boot of OS/2 1.10 and PC-DOS 3.30 (german releases from IBM). There were
no problems after upgrading to OS/2 1.20 or PC-DOS 4.01. I heard of
people using this program for alternate boot of PC-DOS and Digital
Research's DR-DOS. There is no further experience with other versions
or suppliers, but the author is pleased to hear of success installing
newer versions or of problems to do so (not so pleased !?!).

If you have problems using this program with foreign or newer releases
of the mentioned operating systems, you can contact the author.

VOICE:     ++49-7191-59110      (from 6pm to 9pm (european time !) and holidays)

              or by CCWN-BBS

MODEM:     ++49-7151-68434      24h online     Fido 2:509/21

Newer versions of this utility will be available in this BBS in the
File Area "OS/2 - Utilities" first. I will try to release it to
"Fernwood" also as soon as possible.

Attention: POLYBOOT will be distributed with all support files as
       POLYBOOT.ZIP only. Don't accept single files ! Be aware
       of Viruses !


2. Preparations for POLYBOOT
----------------------------

First unpack POLYBOOT.ZIP. Because of you are reading this file, i think
you did this already. If you got single Files, do *NOT* use them. Viruses
are mostly hidden in small, useful TOOLS !!!!

PLEASE (!) do a BACKUP of all your hard disks first !!!!
Although there has never been any loss of data during use of POLYBOOT,
safety first ! (When did you do your last backup ??) If you have a
backup you can restore all your data if there occurres a malfunction
of your harddisc during use of polyboot. Verify your backup if possible !


There are three Options possible with POLYBOOT:

1) OS/2 and DOS are installed on the primary partition of your
   first, and possibly only, hard disc.

2) OS/2 is installed on the primary partition of your first,
   DOS is installed on the primary partition of your second harddisc.
   (Both FAT-Type)

3) OS/2 (Vers. 1.20 only) is installed on your first HPFS-partition
   of your first hard disc, DOS is installed on your first
   FAT-partition of your second hard disc.

Options 2) and 3) are only available to users having *TWO*
physical hard discs.


2.1. Option 1
--------------

If you select option 1), two system files of DOS must be the first
two files on your hard disc. You can achieve this mostly likt this:

1. You have DOS installed already

   installing now OS/2 1.10:
    copy AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS to a subdirectory
    rename IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM (e.g.: XXXBIO.COM ..)
          (you can do this only with programs like PCTOOLS, XTREE ...)
    install OS/2 normally.
    rename the systemfiles to their original names

   installing now OS/2 1.20:
    copy AUTOEXEC.BAT und CONFIG.SYS to a subdirectory
    install OS/2 and select DUAL-BOOT during installation


2. You have OS/2 installed already

    boot DOS from Floppy disc.
    copy OS2LDR. and OS2KRNL. to another name
       (e.g.: XXXLDR. must be in '\' - use PCTOOLS, XTREE ...)
    compare them to the originals
    delete originals
    copy first IBMBIO.COM and then IBMDOS.COM from Floppy to
    hard disc (use PCTOOLS, XTREE ...) - perhaps SYS.COM works
    rename BS/2 system files to their original names.

    (Not in all cases DOS is bootable after this - you have to
     format your primary partition then and install DOS first -
     FORMAT /S from DOS - sorry I didn't make that bloody DOS)

After that you can re-sort your directory an optimise your hard disc
with a disc compressing utility, if you have the programs for that.

Answer the question "How to name found CONFIG.DOS and AUTOEXEC.BAT"
during installation of OS/2 with CONFIG.DOS and AUTOEXEC.DOS !



2.2. Options 2 or 3
--------------------

If you want to install DOS on your second hard disc, so do the normal
procedure (FORMAT D: /s or SYS D:). You should BACKUP this partition
before in *ANY* case !!


2.3. all Options
-----------------

Next you should have a bootable DOS-Floppy ! On this disk there should
be the two hidden system Files, COMMAND.COM, the files for national
keyboard support (KEYBOARD.SYS and KEYB.COM) and suitable CONFIG.SYS
and AUTOEXEC.BAT. If you use command utilities like CED or DOSEDIT,
you could use them too. Now copy *ALL* Files from the POLYBOOT-Package
to this disk. If there is sufficient space, it could be useful to copy
the RESTORE program of your BACKUP-utility to this disc. Try to boot
with this disc !

If this boot is successful, let's begin:


Change to drive A: (A:\>_) and call GETPARTY. If this program run
succesfully - meaning no error was displayed - there must be a new
(small) program on the Floppy named PARTY.COM. This program can be
used to write back your partition information, when there is an
error destroying your partition information during the use of
POLYBOOT. NEVER !! start this program on another computer than
yours !! Delete it immediately after successfully installing the
mult-boot-option.


Let's go NOW:


3. Use Of POLYBOOT
-------------------

ATTENTION: Did you read the pevious chapter ???
       Did you do everything as written there ???
       Is there a File PARTY.COM on your Floppy-Disk ???
       If not, -> go back and do it again !!!

If yes, start POLYBOOT (from DOS). Polyboot displays now some
information on your screen. In the upper half of your screen
you see all existing partitions on your hard discs. If you have
more than one extended partitions, you will see the first only,
because booting is not possible from extended partitions anyway.

Below that, you see the bootable partitions. This field is empty
now, because you never worked with POLYBOOT before. If there is
something (strange characters or something like that) delete it.
It dosn't matter anyhow. If you start POLYBOOT lateron, you will
see the bootable partitions you insert now.

There is an input line at the bottom of the screen. You must enter
the name for your first bootable partition (up to 11 characters).
This is that partition which was claimed "active" by FDISK till now
(this will normally be OS/2). This partition will be inserted in the
empty area for bootable partitions mentioned above. A uppercase "A"
will show you the Autoboot-feature.


3.1. Option 1
--------------

To boot DOS and OS/2 from the same partition you have to create an
alternate boot sector. You can do this by pressing "C". You will be
prompted for insertion of a bootable floppy disk for the alternate
system (normally DOS). Insert this disk into drive A: when prompted.
After creation of this alternate boot sector it will be added to the
list of existing partitions in the upper half of your screen. You can
select it after pressing "I" and insert it in the list of bootable
partitions below.

You can erase an alternate boot sector after pressing "E", if it isn't
registered in the list of bootable partitions. You delete it from this
list by pressind "D" before.


3.2. Options 2 or 3
--------------------

You may install DOS on the second hard disc or further partitions
on the same disc (e.g.: UNIX) by pressing "I" and selecting them.
You can delete such partitions from the list of bootable partitions
by pressing "D", if they don't have the Autoboot-feature. You move
the Autoboot-Flag to another partition by pressing "A".


3.3. all Options
-----------------

Reaching an accaptable Solution for multibooting, you may leave the
program by pressing <ESC>. You select from "Y" for writing changes to
disc and exit, "N" for not writing but exit and "Q" for doing nothing
and returning to program again if you hit <ESC> accidentally.

After leaving with writing, try rebooting the system from hard disc.
During boot, right after the BEEP you should see a menu coming up
for selection of the OSs. At least the previos active system (normally
OS/2) must boot correctly. Also the OSs having their own file system
(e.g.: UNIX/XENIX) shold boot if selected. Also should DOS, when
option 3 was used.

Options 1) and 2) must fail now, because of smaller problems within
DOS. To solve this, there are several PATCH-programs in this
package to change DOS system files in that way, that boot is
possible.


4. Utility Programms PATCH and VERSION
---------------------------------------

Use PATCH only, if OS/2 is installed on a FAT-Partition (Options 1 and 2).
Never use ist with option 3) (OS/2 on HPFS partition) !!!


Yet available versions of PATCH:

PATCH330.COM        Patch prg for PC-DOS 3.30 (german IBM version)
PATCH401.COM        Patch prg for PC-DOS 4.01 (german IBM version)

There are further versions in preparation (call me !)

PATCH401.ASM        Source for Patch (read separate manual !)

The patch program is called in the following way:

        PATCHxxx d:

where "d:" is the drive where IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM are located.
This program can be started from the compatibility box of OS/2 also,
in opposite to POLYBOOT which can run in DOS only !

This program patches the obove mentioned files, if they are located on
your hard disc in that location, which is needed for boot. This patch
does the following:

option 1: (PATCHXXX C:)
    IBMBIO.COM searches for CONFIG.DOS instead of CONFIG.SYS.
    In this way the correct initialisation of DOS is achieved.
    IMPORTANT: Supply the SHELL-Command with full path in
           both CONFIG-files and use the COMSPEC in AUTOEXEC.BAT !

option 2: (PATCHXXX D:)
    All system files (including CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT) will
    be searched on Drive D:\. So they can be different from those
    used by OS/2.


If you installed DOS on your second hard drive (option 2), you have
completed now. Read the following paragraph only, if you want to share
the same AUTOEXEC for DOS and OS2. If not, notice the paragraph
"ATTENTION" below and read Chapter 5 then.

If you installed DOS and OS/2 on the same partition, note the following.
OS/2's DOS-BOX and DOS 3.30 use different COMMAND.COM Files. Further
the external commands from OS/2 and DOS are not interchangeable.
Therefore all extrnal commands for OS/2 are located in a directory
called OS2 (mostly) and those for DOS in a directory called DOS.
This is valid also for COMMAND.COM, national keyboard support files
and other .SYS - files. You must insert the following statement in
your CONFIG.SYS (OS/2) therefore:

SHELL=C:\OS2\COMMAND.COM /p

the same statement in CONFIG.DOS is:

SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /p

Further all device driver files must be supplied with full path. They
must not stay in root (C:\) directory !

A major problem is the PATH statement in AUTOEXEC.BAT. It gives the
searching order for external commands for DOS or compatibility box.
It must point to C:\OS2 in compatibility box and to C:\DOS when you boot
with DOS. You can achieve this with the small program VERSION.COM
supplied with this package. This program returns the major release
number of the operating system (3 for DOS 3.xx, 4 for DOS 4.xx and
10 for OS/2 1.x). After that you can split into specific
initialisation procedures for OS/2 and DOS by using the COMMAND
"IF ERRORLEVEL 10 GOTO ...". If you modified your AUTOEXEC.BAT similar
to that supplied with this package (AUTOEXEC.BSP), you should be able
to boot DOS without any problems now.


ATTENTION:

If you ever create a bootable DOS-disc (FLOPPY) from your hard disc
(e.g.: SYS or FORMAT /S), it will create a DOS-disc containing the
patches PATCHxxx.COM applied.

To revert this patches simply call

        PATCHxxx A:


5. Closing
-----------

If you are now able to boot all your operating systems, please delete
PARTY.COM to ensure not to loose all your work done in the last few
minutes by calling this program.

You may now move the Autoboot feature everytime (but only when running
DOS) from one partition to another or remove a partition from the
selection menu.

If you want to change the name of a bootable partition, you must first
de-install it and install it again immendiately. If you want to do so
with that partition having the Autoboot-flag move this flag temporary
to another partition.

The new 2.0 version of POLYBOOT runs now as a OS/2 Application, except
in the compatibility box. It offers an additional "RENAME" option which
can be used to change the select prompt (e.g. at after a release change).
GETPARTY could be run in OS/2 also - but the PARTY.COM will run in DOS
(not DOS-BOX) only.

If you are satisfied with this program, give it to your friends; if not
feel free to contact me. In no case the files should be distributed
alone, patches made to programs, where no sources are supplied, or
made profit of any kind by selling or leasing it.


Markus Noller, CCWN Member     7153 Weissach im Tal (W.GERMANY)