Why Free?

Norman L. DeForest wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, kurt wismer wrote:
[snip]
>>the boot record write protection often got turned off due to false
>>alarms when installing or re-installing OSes... changing the boot
>>sequence was a good one though, but sometimes one still wishes to boot
>>from a floppy (even in linux)...
>
> [snip]
>
> The BIOS options on all the computers I have seen do *not* have a setting
> that stops you from booting off a floppy disk.

ok, i have... i've seen where you can select "A:, C:", "C:, A:", or "C:"...

> They only have a setting
> that tries other drives *first*.

must be a machine dependent thing then... or rather a bios dependent
thing... different strokes for different manufacturers...

> If, for some reason, those drives don't
> respond during the POST, you can still have your computer boot from a
> floppy disk even when you have told the BIOS to try C: first.

yeah, or if you fail to boot normally you can just go in and change the
boot sequence - which you'd have to do anyways when you're trying to
perform a clean boot...

--
"we're the first ones to starve, we're the first ones to die
the first ones in line for that pie in the sky
and we're always the last when the cream is shared out
for the worker is working when the fat cat's about"

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 00:07:02 -0400, Norman L. DeForest <af380.DeleteThis@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:

> The BIOS options on all the computers I have seen do *not* have a setting
> that stops you from booting off a floppy disk. They only have a setting
> that tries other drives *first*. If, for some reason, those drives don't
> respond during the POST, you can still have your computer boot from a
> floppy disk even when you have told the BIOS to try C: first.

Your knowledge is a little out of date.

On my system I have options for the first,second, and third devices to
search for a boot record. Each of those can be set to one of 29 possible
values, and I can also specify whether or not to search the remaining
possible boot sources, if none of the three work.

All of these include the option "disable". If I disable all three boot
devices, and the search other devices, then I either get an error message,
stopping the boot, or have to press f8, to go to a boot menu.

If I don't have the floppy in one of the options, and have the search
remaining disabled, it will not boot from a floppy.

I currently have IDE-3 (linux on my third hd) as the only option. If I
want to boot ide-0 (windows), cdrom, or floppy, I either have to change
the cmos settings, or use the builtin boot menu.

> The one time I got a virus infection on one of my computers, I was in the
> middle of typing an "f-prot" command to check a floppy disk when the AC
> power failed for about one second and then came back on, rebooting the

The only time I was hit, was when I bought a new hd, that came complete
with the ripper, boot sector virus.

My current system is an ECS L7VMM3 motherboard, with AMI bios dated
2003-12-25.

Regards, Dave Hodgins
--
Change nomail.afraid.org to rogers.com to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specfically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)