README - November 25th, 2000
by Eric Laberge

Synopsys
--------

'createdisk.sh' is a quick and dirty utility designed to help people create
their hard disk images. Designed for use with Plex86 on Mandrake 7.2, but it
should work with anything that uses standard images.

Usage
-----

createdisk.sh file size
  file : File name
  size : Requested size (MB)

Missing parameters will be prompted.

'createdisk.sh' then tries to figure out the correct CHS value and creates the
file, adding a master boot record if it finds a 'mbrdata' file. The default
'mbrdata' supplied file is from the '10M.FreeDOS' disk image.

Be sure to note the CHS values, because they'll come in handy later!

Setting up the image
--------------------

The way I suggest to set up your image partition is to use fdisk with these
extra steps:

1) As root (required to use fdisk), call fdisk with your image for parameter
  root>fdisk myimage.img

2) Go to expert mode by typing 'x'
  Command (m for help) : x

3) Manually set the CHS values you previously noted for your image
  Expert Command (m for help) : c
  Number of cylinders (1-4321): 20

  Expert Command (m for help) : h
  Number of heads (1-256): 16

  Expert Command (m for help) : s
  Number of sectors (1-63): 63

4) You may have a warning, it's not really important

5) Go back to standard mode with the 'r' command
  Expert Command (m for help) : r

6) You can now use fdisk as you normally would.

Notes
-----

This is my first attempt at shell scripting.
I made the script use hard-coded maximum values for heads and sectors. Unless
speed can be gained in the VM by tweaking these parameters, I don't see why
it should be changed.

Eric Laberge
e.laberge@videotron.ca

