vivek@ecst.csuchico.edu (Vivek R Prabhu) (03/25/91)
I would like to seek your help to solve a problem which I have been having loading SCO-Xenix onto my machine and I have not been able to fix it. I have an AMSTRAD PC-386 machine (IBM clone) with an 80 Mb hard drive and 4 Mb extended RAM. The model is a baby case model and hence it has an internal 3.5" floppy drive and an external 5.25" floppy drive. I have been trying to load the SCO-Xenix development system into my machine but when I first tried it out the machine used to boot up from the hard disk which already contains DOS 4.01. Thinking that transferring the software to 3.5" from the original 5.25" set of floppies would solve my problem I did that using a friend's system using the commands format /dwev/rfd1135ds18 for formatting 3.5" floppies and then copied the software into the 3.5" floppy set using the dd command as follows, dd of=/dev/fd096ds15 of=/dev/fd1135ds18 and then tried to load the Xenix system from the 3.5" floppies but now I get the message " Insert SYSTEM disk in drive A : Press Any Key To Continue ", in other words the bootstrap program of the SCO-Xenix distribution itself does not get loaded into the hard drive, thus causing me a lot of frustration. I have already partitioned my hard drive into 30 Mb for my DOS software and 50 Mb for the SCO-Xenix software but I am unable to force fdisk in DOS to allow me to make a non-DOS partition active as it allows me only to make one partition active which is DOS and it does not even display the 50 Mb space as " other partition ", thus making it impossible for me to load Xenix onto my machine. I tried to use the "fdisk" utility so as to make the non DOS partition active but it does not allow me to do so and only allows the Primary DOS partition to be made active and moreover does not even display the information of the balanc 50 Mb partition as a non-DOS partition. I would be highly obliged if you could suggest a means of overcoming this problem. My e-mail address is " vivek@ecst.csuchico.edu ". Thanking You All, With Regards, Vivek.
jbayer@ispi.COM (Jonathan Bayer) (03/27/91)
vivek@ecst.csuchico.edu (Vivek R Prabhu) writes: >I would like to seek your help to solve a problem which I have been having >from the 3.5" floppies but now I get the message " Insert SYSTEM disk in drive >A : Press Any Key To Continue ", in other words the bootstrap program of the >SCO-Xenix distribution itself does not get loaded into the hard drive, thus >causing me a lot of frustration. >I have already partitioned my hard drive into 30 Mb for my DOS software and >50 Mb for the SCO-Xenix software but I am unable to force fdisk in DOS to allow >me to make a non-DOS partition active as it allows me only to make one partition >problem. >My e-mail address is " vivek@ecst.csuchico.edu ". >Thanking You All, >With Regards, >Vivek. The message "Insert SYSTEM disk ..." is ok. It is asking you to insert the second Xenix diskette, since the entire OS is apparently not on your first diskette. Put in the second diskette and press a key, and your installation will continue. BTW, this information is in the release notes and/or installation manual. During the install a Xenix partition will be made, and it will be active. JB -- Jonathan Bayer Intelligent Software Products, Inc. (201) 245-5922 500 Oakwood Ave. jbayer@ispi.COM Roselle Park, NJ 07204
barton@holston.UUCP (Barton A. Fisk) (03/29/91)
In article <1991Mar25.085303.3874@ecst.csuchico.edu> vivek@ecst.csuchico.edu (Vivek R Prabhu) writes: >when I first tried it out the machine used to boot up from the hard disk which >already contains DOS 4.01. Try installing DOS 3.3 or lower on the clone first. Seems I remember reading somewhere that Xenix doesn't like DOS 4.x partitions on the same disk. -- uucp: holston!barton pseudo: barton@holston.UUCP
shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) (04/04/91)
barton@holston.UUCP (Barton A. Fisk) writes: >Try installing DOS 3.3 or lower on the clone first. Seems I remember >reading somewhere that Xenix doesn't like DOS 4.x partitions >on the same disk. Not true. I recently loaded 4.01 on an AST 386 and subsequently added Xenix/386. The important issues, as I understand them are: 1) Install DOS as the first partition; and 2) Limit your DOS partition to 32 MB. ----------- uunet!media!ka3ovk!raysnec!shwake shwake@rsxtech
berk@techsys.uucp (techsys consulting) (04/05/91)
shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) writes: > barton@holston.UUCP (Barton A. Fisk) writes: > > >Try installing DOS 3.3 or lower on the clone first. Seems I remember > >reading somewhere that Xenix doesn't like DOS 4.x partitions > >on the same disk. DOS 4.01 is not only so brain dead that it doesn't understand itself, things it creats are unknown to the rest of the "old world". It's not just big partitions, it's the basic boot record. Go back to 3.3 or earlier and low level format the disk. Then chunk in *nix and dos 4. Or you >could< spend the time and $$ for a newer version :)
raj@netcom.COM (Roger Lee) (04/15/91)
berk@techsys.uucp (techsys consulting) writes: >shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) writes: >> barton@holston.UUCP (Barton A. Fisk) writes: >> >> >Try installing DOS 3.3 or lower on the clone first. Seems I remember >> >reading somewhere that Xenix doesn't like DOS 4.x partitions >> >on the same disk. >DOS 4.01 is not only so brain dead that it doesn't understand itself, >things it creats are unknown to the rest of the "old world". It's >not just big partitions, it's the basic boot record. Go back to 3.3 >or earlier and low level format the disk. Then chunk in *nix and dos 4. >Or you >could< spend the time and $$ for a newer version :) Ah how true. But the version isn't what Unix/Xenix is gagging on. You can be running a device driver (SpeedStor or Disk Mangler for instance) under an 'acceptable' version and Xenix still won't like it. It's the partition size that matters. If you keep your C: drive at or under 32 megs, you're ok no matter what version of DOS you're running (I'm running DOS 5 Beta 432 and have had no problems whatsoever). but you're right......4.01 is drain bammaged. -- /=========================================================================\ || I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am. || || It's just the drunker I sit here, the longer I get. || \=========================================================================/