[comp.os.minix] root on hard disk

bill@chinet.chi.il.us (Bill Mitchell) (01/12/90)

For Mike Higgs (higgs_m@uk.ac.lancsp.p1), who asked me how to get
the root onto hard disk, but mail bounces when I reply.

The documentation & test disk in the PH 1.3 distribution contains
a USER_GUIDE file in doc/doc.a.Z, along with other useful stuff.
Following is an extract from the file.  Blindingly fast compared
to loading the root from floppy, not to mention how good it is to
put the root on hard disk under 1.5.0 and get that 240k of RAM back.

Be sure to keep a current copy of a 240k root partition on floppy
to restore /dev/hd3 if you're running 1.5.0 with root on disk.  I
seem to have my hd3 partition trashed about one time out of three
when i try to restart minix.

Following is an extract from that USER_GUIDE file.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This file contains important information not present in the book or elsewhere.
Please read it VERY carefully.


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  6. PUTTING THE ROOT FILE SYSTEM ON A HARD DISK
       To speed up the boot procedure, you may copy the root file system to
    /dev/hd3 with the commands 
		cp /dev/fd0 /dev/hd3     or    cp /dev/at0 /dev/hd3
    The former is for the PC, the latter is for the AT.  /dev/hd3 must not be
    mounted. When booting, leave the boot diskette in the drive when typing the
    = sign.  MINIX will see that the diskette is not a valid file system, and
    take the root file system from the default device, /dev/hd3.  You can 
    change the choice of default by modifying RAM_IMAGE in fs/main.c

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