Hi Arkady: Ok, the BIOS provides support for DOS to recognize the partitions. This doesn't work on anything like all BIOS's, but it does seem to work on a lot of newer ones. I appreciate the clarification... I'm definitely still learning about how PC's boot.
It is NOT true that C: is always a bootable partition. C: may not contain a boot sector and may not be the active partition. On at least one of my computers, a logical partition gets a drive letter under DOS. I'm not sure if I could make it C:, but it sure shows up as D:! I bet if I removed the FAT primary partition, it would show as C:. You can illustrate this by booting from a floppy if there is a FAT partition around. I just tried running some applications from a USB stick booting FreeDOS. It didn't work very well...the USB stick got slightly corrupted. I have seen similar problems today with MS-DOS without SMARTDRV, so some research is in order! You can set the "hidden" property using any number of Linux-based tools...I was using qtParted. Some boot loaders allow hiding partitions as well. This allows booting DOS from a primary partition which isn't the first one on the disk, I believe. Thanks for all the help! I'd love to be able to boot FreeDOS from a CD and run from a USB stick. I've got that working now with MS-DOS, so there is hope... :-) Mark > Hi! > > 27-ñÎ×-2005 23:16 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote to > freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net: > > kn> between Linux and Windows. The BIOS maps both of > kn> these drives (as C: and D:) when I boot the CD. > > BIOS doesn't maps anything, this does OS. And disk C: always assigned > to bootable primary partition. > > kn> Apparently, it isn't possible even to set the "hidden" > kn> flag on a logical partition, and setting the "hidden" > kn> flag on the primary partition doesn't seem to hide it anyway. > > How (in which program) you set "hidden"? (Note: unless you change ID > code in partition table (from FATxx to something else), DOS always will > recognize partition.) > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting > Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time > by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. > Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IntelliVIEW -- Interactive Reporting Tool for open source databases. Create drag-&-drop reports. Save time by over 75%! Publish reports on the web. Export to DOC, XLS, RTF, etc. Download a FREE copy at http://www.intelliview.com/go/osdn_nl _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user