I think I understand what you said, Peter :--))
Except I'm not sure about the number of floppies. You say "a single floppy
can get you started with the boot loader".
Er...well, as there are four of them, which one?
And do I understand that the floppy (which ever one it is) will only get the
boot started - but the boot won't complete without a (bootable, I take it?)
CD, or OS on the HDD?
What I was trying to do, was to run FProt (the simple two-floppy disk virus
checker version) on a 2K laptop which I suspected might have a bug,
something I frequently do on W9xMe machines, as an adjunct to the main
installed AV program.
But then I discovered it didn't have a floppy drive anyway! Which made my
question somewhat academic, but I'm still curious, for future reference.
I finally copied the two disks to the hard drive, and ran FProt from the
command line, but it didn't work. First FProt complained about there not
being a floppy drive (part of it's checking routine, I guess) and then the
OS complained about something quite esoteric which I didn't record.
Fortunately, I managed to fix the problem in the end.
Ian Porter
Computer Guys Inc.
Arrowtown
New Zealand
[log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Shkabara" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 4:41 PM
Subject: Re: [PCSOFT] Win2K boot disk
> Unlike MS-DOS (including win9x), NT, which includes Win2k and XP, cannot
> be booted from a floppy alone due to the size of the core code. What you
> have in the boot disks for Win2k is a boot loader and a whole lot of
> device drivers needed to start the OS. It then must rely on a CDROM or
> hard disk image to continue the boot. If you already have Win2k
> installed on a hard disk, a single floppy can get you started with the
> boot loader.
>
> Recognize that DOS and Win9x relies on the BIOS in ROM for part of its
> device drivers. NT does not use the BIOS and loads its own drivers for
> all hardware. That is why it needs a larger disk storage to boot, and
> also why it may not run on all hardware. The benefit here is a much more
> reliable system (most of the time :) ).
>
> Peter
> ------------------
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Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>
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