conan@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Robert B Carroll) (06/16/89)
I'm in the process of setting up a 386 machine to run MS-DOS and Xenix. I plan to use the following disk drive setup: western digital controller(controls 2 floppies and 2 hard disks) can't remember model #. seagate model 4096(something like that) 80Mb hard disk for xenix 30-40 Mb hard disk for ms-dos 1.2 Mb 5 1/4 floppy 1.44 Mb 3 1/2 floppy My questions are: 1) will there be any problems handling the hard disks/ controller for dos or xenix? 2) will the 1.2 Mb floppy read/write/format 360K disks? 3) will the 1.44 Mb drive read/write/format 720K floppies? Any help would be appreciated. I have my reasons for this setup. I may change it depending on the answers of the above questions. please send email to: -- conan@vax1.acs.udel.edu OR conan@192.5.57.1 CONAN THE BARBARIAN of Cimmeria
davidsen@sungod.crd.ge.com (William Davidsen) (06/16/89)
The setup you want to run works. I would suggest placing DOS on the
first hard disk with xenix, so that you can use the 'dos' boot option
in xenix (boot either without using a floppy). Xenix handles a 2nd hard
drive seemlessly, so you can easily use the rest of the space on the
first hard disk and all of the space on the 2nd.
All the usual caveats about 360 in a 1200k drive: format it in the 1200k
drive, write it in the 1200k drive. *don't* write/format it in a 360k
drive then modify it in a 1200k drive. Sometimes it works, maybe even
most of the time on some drives, but there are good technical reasons
why it can result in a disk which won't read on a 360k drive. 720 on a
1.44 doesn't have this problem, again good technical reasons, often
discussed here before.
Question you didn't ask: I have had very good luck using the Archive
tape drive with Xenix and DOS, for what it's worth. I have also used the
Wangtek, and it's satisfactory but not my first choice.
bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM)
{uunet | philabs}!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -meske@pkmab.se (Kristoffer Eriksson) (06/21/89)
In article <822@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes: >The setup you want to run works. I would suggest placing DOS on the >first hard disk with xenix, so that you can use the 'dos' boot option >in xenix (boot either without using a floppy). On my system (Xenix/386 2.3), I have patched the "dos" boot program to load DOS from the second hard disk. I have Xenix on the entire first hard disk, and DOS on the entire second hard disk. Very convinient. (Why isn't this in the original boot program?) -- Kristoffer Eriksson, Peridot Konsult AB, Hagagatan 6, S-703 40 Oerebro, Sweden Phone: +46 19-13 03 60 ! e-mail: ske@pkmab.se Fax: +46 19-11 51 03 ! or ...!{uunet,mcvax}!sunic.sunet.se!kullmar!pkmab!ske
stuart@bms-at.UUCP (Stuart Gathman) (06/30/89)
> > On my system (Xenix/386 2.3), I have patched the "dos" boot program to I had no problems patching the "dos" boot program, but PC-DOS refused to run from the second disk. There was no inherent reason. I traced and dis- assembled about a dozen stages of the DOS boot process, patching code of the form: cmp DL,80H jnz error to NOPs getting further and further each time. After three hours of this nonsense, I gave up and decided that if MS didn't want me to boot DOS from the second drive, I wasn't going to fight it. This was PCDOS 3.1. Is this behaviour removed in more recent releases? Is it only in IBM versions? -- Stuart D. Gathman <stuart@bms-at.uucp> <..!{vrdxhq|daitc}!bms-at!stuart>