home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
- Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!sunic!aun.uninett.no!ugle.unit.no!itk.unit.no!amund
- From: amund@itk.unit.no (Amund Skavhaug)
- Subject: Re: OS/2 Boot Manager and NT incompatibility; Read on!
- Message-ID: <1992Dec15.124936.18461@ugle.unit.no>
- Sender: news@ugle.unit.no (NetNews Administrator)
- Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology / SINTEF, Trondheim, Norway
- References: <sal8.246.724201910@po.cwru.edu> <1992Dec13.225515.9365@ichips.intel.com> <1992Dec14.034749.11780@cdf.toronto.edu> <1992Dec14.192226.16205@microsoft.com>
- Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 12:49:36 GMT
- Lines: 86
-
- In article <1992Dec14.192226.16205@microsoft.com>, jvert@microsoft.com (John Vert) writes:
- |> In article <1992Dec14.034749.11780@cdf.toronto.edu> g1nickut@cdf.toronto.edu (Nick Zahariadis) writes:
- |> >In article <1992Dec13.225515.9365@ichips.intel.com> jburns@pdxgp1 (John Justin Burns Jr.) writes:
- |> >>In article <sal8.246.724201910@po.cwru.edu> sal8@po.cwru.edu (Steve Luzynski) writes:
- |> >>>
- |> >>>The NT beta has code included that makes it absolutely refuse to install if
- |> >>>it detects the OS/2 boot manager on your hard drive. Pretty rude of MS if
- |> >>>you ask me (OS/2 does no such check for NT).
- |> >>>
- |> >>Does NT have a boot manager or something like it?
- |> >>
- |> >>I have just been given an article which describes how to install NT using
- |> >>the OS/2 boot manager (Douglas Hamilton, Windows Magazine, OCT. 92). I
- |> >>have not tryed the procedure. It is very specific and the biggest catch
- |> >>for me is that NT must be the first thing put on the disk, something I can
- |> >>not tolerate (Boot Manager must be first, then os/2 v2 on E:). NT must be
- |> >>put on C: (OK with me). I assume this article is for the beta version just
- |> >>previous to the one now out.
- |> >>
- |> >>OK, so it will not install with the boot manager. Another post on this
- |> >>news group mentioned that there is a bit in the boot record that may be toggled
- |> >>so that the boot manager would not be visible during NT installation.
- |> >>Would this work?
- |> >
- |> > Yes, I've mentioned it and it is possible. There are ways of bypassing
- |> > checks like this that install programs make (and shouldn't really make, if
- |> > the reason is other than incompatibility).
- |> >
- |>
- |> > Also note, that sneaky little checks like that don't serve any purpose
- |> > other than marketing strategies (or lack thereof).
- |>
- |> [ giant anti-MS polemic deleted ]
- |>
- |> The reason that the NT Beta will not install with Boot Manager is NOT
- |> because Microsoft hates IBM, or because Microsoft wants to make your life
- |> miserable, or any other shadowy Microsoft conspiracy. The reason is
- |> that Boot Manager plays games with the partition table. Notably, the
- |> partition that NTLDR gets started from is no longer marked ACTIVE.
- |> Instead, the Boot Manager partition is marked ACTIVE. Whether or not
- |> you think IBM has broken the "rules" of the MBR and partition table,
- |> the fact is that without a lot of amazing gymnastics (like Doug Hamilton
- |> has outlined elsewhere) you cannot get Boot Manager and NTLDR to agree
- |> on what partition should be marked ACTIVE.
- |>
- |> Since installation of NT over Boot Manager will likely result in either
- |> an unbootable NT or an unbootable OS/2, Windows NT Setup does its best
- |> to prevent this. You may consider this "sneaky" or "underhanded" if
- |> you like. But the truth is that this configuration is not supported
- |> for a REASON that has nothing to do with marketing.
- |> jvert@microsoft.com (speaking, of course, for myself)
- |>
-
- -- This is not true.
- I made a primary dospartition active, then tried to install the october
- NT beta (on floppies). On the first diskette NT hung, disk drive on,
- had to switch off the power. So ... NT does not check for an active
- bootmanager partition, it checks if it is there at all !
- Then I took a brand new IDE disk, removed the old with both dos and
- os2 on. Installed NT on a partition first on it. At NT boot time it
- asked me if I wanted to boot NT or previous operating system...
- there WAS NO previous operating system on the disk, I low level formatted it
- before I started !
- Then afterwards I installed bootmanager , installed the dos/os2 disk as a
- slave disk. Booting os2 or dos from bootmanager was ok. Then I tried
- NT from the bootmanager menu, it starts, then it looks for NTLDR and
- dies. And I came up with the same conclusion as jvert@microsoft.com...
- BUT then I booted dos, used norton utilities, changed bootmanagers
- partitiontable id from 0A to 00.(Use diskedit.exe, it its EASY)
- NB Still bootmanager was active !
- Then I booted NT from the bootmanager menu, no problem at all !
- What does this mean ? It is easy to make NT coexist with os2, and
- jvert@microsoft.com is either misinformed, a lier, or MS has got
- some really incompetent programmers (and these has told jvert).
-
- This is NOT `advocacy`, but information about how to try NT and os2
- on the same machine easily....And watch NT eating up 16MB ram,
- 30MB swapfile before any programs are started :-)
-
- Regards, Amund Skavhaug
-
- Division of Engineering Cybernetics : Phone +47 7 594376
- The Norwegian Institute of Technology : Fax +47 7 594399
- N-7034 Trondheim : Email amund@itk.unit.no
- NORWAY
-
-