FTHSMULD%rulgl.LeidenUniv.nl@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Jeroen W. Pluimers) (03/22/91)
In VIRUS-L volume 4, issue 46, Rob Mason says: > Our MINIX-OS class is presently using floppies to boot the system > (v1.2) on AT-clones. We would like to eliminate all booting from > floppies by recabling the drives. This is needed to prevent the spread > of the stoned virus on the C: partition (Minix is on the D: > partition). > > I see at least two solution strategies: either start up MINIX as a > process under DOS (as NYU Ultra does), or have MINIX booting directly > off the D: partition. The second method requires us to put MINIX boot > sectors on the D: partition and provide some "user transparent" > switch-active-partition software that is accessible from either > partition. Perhaps a .logoff file on the MINIX side could access the > switch program directly, since we run DOS most of the time. You could get the <MSDOS.SYSUTIL>ANYBOOT.ZIP file from SIMTEL20. It modyfies the master-boot record on your PC so that it can boot from multiple paritions. I did not yet try the program, but from the sources and the documentation, it seems it would work OK. On boot, it allows you to choose (by means of functions keys) to choose which parition will boot. Another way would be to remove the cabling from the floppies or tell the CMOS RAM (if you have an AT or higher, but I suppose thats required for minix) that no floppie drives exist. <MSDOS.DSKUTL>FDFRM16A.ZIP contains a program that allows un-bootable diskettes to boot directly from the hard-disk. Maybe that also works for you. Hope this helps, Jeroen W. Pluimers - Gorlaeus Laboratories, Leiden University