Copyright (C) 1997-99 BlueSky
Innovations LLC
All rights reserved.
1. Features
Power Boot allows you to boot different Operating Systems
from different
partitions on different hard disk drives.
Features include:
- hide/unhide partitions on the fly as you boot up. There is no need to
run another program in order to hide or unhide partitions.
- One touch option to configure your system to update an Operating System.
- One touch option to configure your system to install an OEM version of
an operating system e.g. Windows95 OSR2. Very often, these OEM versions
will not install if they detect another OS on the system.
- Give names to your partitions like 'Win95 OSR2' or 'MSDOS 6.22' for
easy identification
- Boot from any one of 63 partitions in any drive. This is only limited by the
ability of the OS to be booted from a drive other than C. For example, Linux
can be booted from any drive or partition. MSDOS must be booted from a
primary partition.
- Supports LBA mode for hard drive access in order to launch partitions in
hard drives larger than 8GigaBytes.
- Once the operating system is loaded, Power Boot does not occupy any memory
(Swap mode off).
- Power Boot does not occupy a partition (unlike OS/2 Boot Manager). It does
not require you to repartition your drive for installation. Best of all,
it does not require you to have a FAT partition.
- Power Boot does not require any configuration. It is INSTALL and PLAY! If you
have edited lilo.conf and then forget to run lilo before rebooting, you will
appreciate this!
- Password : to prevent someone else from changing the boot defaults
or to boot from another partition.
- Save last boot : if you boot from an extended partition or from a
partition on a hard drive other than the first one, this partition
will become the default partition. Power Boot will always boot this
partition without any user intervention.
- Save option settings : all options you set during a boot session
with Power Boot will be saved so that the next time Power Boot starts
up, it will use the same options. For example, if you have set Expert
mode, the next time you start Power Boot, you will remain in Expert
mode.
- Variable timeout : the timeout delay can now be disabled or set to up to 32
seconds.
- Quiet mode : Power Boot can now start up with just a simple copyright
message.
- DOS Swap Drive: if you choose to boot from a partition that is not on
the first hard drive, you can select a mode whereby this hard drive
will be logically swapped with the first one. For example, assume
that you have C: on one drive and D: on a second drive. Booting from
D: will swap the drives so that as far as the operating system is
concerned, D: is now C: and C: is now D:! This works well with MSDOS
or Win95 in safe mode. That means you can still keep that old
MSDOS/Win3.x drive and install a new multi-giga drive with Win95 or
some other 32-bit OS that can only live on the first hard drive.
- Win9x Swap Drive: Power Boot 2.1 provides this feature that allow you
to boot from Windows 95 that is on a second, third or fourth hard
drive. This means that you can have different versions of Windows95 on
different hard drives and boot from them.
- OS/2 boot drive letter : you can choose which drive letter an OS/2
HPFS partition can be booted with. This overrides the default drive
letter allocation which can change drastically when you move hard
drives around or add partitions. With this feature, we have
successfully booted OS/2 from the second hard drive.
- Features new to Version 3.x include:
. Allows you to prevent Power Boot from showing non-bootable
partitions. This helps reduce unnecessary clutter on screen.
. Default Boot Partition : Power Boot will always boot from this
partition even if you have previously booted from another one.
This feature, coupled with the password option, will effectively
prevent other people from trying to boot from what you do not what
them to boot from.
. Boot Profiles : Profiles are partitions which are hidden or
visible depending on which partition you are booting from. For
example, when you boot NT, you might want to hide all the FAT
partitions. With Boot Profiles, you do not have to hide the
partitions manually. Then when you want to boot Windows 98, you
may need to unhide the FAT partitions. Again, you do not have to do
it manually.
. Hid a partition and forgot what it was? With Version 3.x, a hidden
partition is now displayed between <> brackets.
. Password modes : Now, you can select whether you want to use the
password to prevent access to Power Boot, or to prevent access to
Power Boot options (like the F3 options menu or other partition-
specific capabilities). This prevents unauthorized people from
changing your settings.
. Dummies Mode not dumb enough for you? Now you can set the dumbness level!
For the really dumb, use the arrow keys to select the
partition and press ENTER. And you will boot from that partition.
. For OS/2 users with maintenance partitions, now you can set
drive letters at the partition level for HPFS partitions.
For example, if the main OS/2 partition is drive C and the
maintenance partition is drive D, you can set each of them
separately. Previously, to boot from the maintenance partition, you
had to set the OS/2 boot drive letter to D, then reset it to C
when you decide to boot OS/2 normally.
2. Installation
2.1 Distribution files
Your copy of Power Boot should come with the following files:
install.exe - Installation file
pboot.txt - This document
license.txt - Licensing agreement
pdisk.exe - Utility to create multiple primary partitions
pdisk.txt - User's guide for pdisk
2.2 Installation Environment
The installation program is call INSTALL.EXE. It must be run in MSDOS mode. To
enter MSDOS mode if you use Windows 95, press F8 when you see 'Starting
Windows 95..' or boot from the Windows95 Startup diskette. If you are not using
MSDOS/DRDOS/PCDOS etc, you need to boot with a DOS diskette. A good and free
alternative, if you do not have DOS, is FreeDOS (http://www.freedos.org).
There is no need to install a DOS/FAT partition in order to install Power Boot.
Power Boot does not need a DOS/FAT partition to work.
2.3 Before you install
Power Boot installs in the Master Boot Record (MBR) of your hard disk. Every
hard disk has a partition sector. Following this, are a number of free
sectors. Power Boot installs itself at this location.
Power Boot needs a total of 33 sectors for installation. You will therefore
need a hard disk with a geometry of at least 33 sectors per track. This is
usually marked down on some hard disks as the "spt" value.
Other programs also use this the MBR. This includes hard disk translation
drivers like EZ-Drive or Disk Manager, boot utilities like Power Boot and
System Commander and a number of computer virus.
Before you install Power Boot, run a virus scan to make sure that you do not
have a virus sitting in your MBR.
In addition, check if you have one or more of the above programs like EZ-Drive
or System Commander.
Power Boot is compatible with Disk Manager and with other software from
BlueSky Innovations LLC. However, it is not compatible with EZ-Drive or System
Commander.
If you use EZ-Drive, please let us know (email : info@bluskyinnovations.com)
and we will rush you a free copy of Power BIOS Lite, which works just as
well.
If you are using Power BIOS Lite with Power Boot, remember to install Power
BIOS Lite first, followed by Power Boot.
One final pre-installation preparation is to back up all your important files.
While the installation program has been in use since 1996 and is very safe,
you should still be careful.
2.4 Installing Power Boot
2.4.1 Running install.exe
When you are in the correct environment, run the install.exe program.
You should get a screen that looks like this:
Power Boot Installation Program V2.0
Copyright (C) 1997-98 Bluesky Innovations, All Rights Reserved
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Power Boot Install Menu ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Install Power Boot
Uninstall Power Boot
Create Rescue Diskette
Exit Installation
Up/down arrows & ENTER to select, ESC to quit
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
HELP ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Install Power Boot into Drive C.
Power Boot allows you to boot between different Operating Systems on your
PC.
Up/down arrows & ENTER to select, ESC to quit
You can use the up/down cursor keys to move the cursor up and down. When you
want to select an option, press ENTER. To quit, either press the ESC key or select
the "Exit Installation" option.
Notice that the bottom half of the screen provides some help text.
2.4.2 Install Power Boot
"Install Power Boot" first saves the critical information in your
Drive C before installing Power Boot. This is so that should the installation
go wrong (very unlikely), you will still be able to restore the state of your
hard disk. The partition information is stored in a file called PBOOT.BIN.
This file should be stored in a diskette with a copy of INSTALL.EXE.
If a copy of PBOOT.BIN already exists, you will be prompted if you would like
to overwrite this file.
Then the Power Boot program will be written into the MBR of your hard disk. You
will need to reboot to actually run Power Boot.
2.4.3 Uninstall Power Boot
"Uninstall Power Boot" restores the partition information previously
saved in PBOOT.BIN and removes Power Boot from your hard disk.
If, for some reason, you have lost the pboot.bin file, the install.exe program
will allow you to uninstall using a generic Master Boot Record (MBR) instead
of the original one.
If you do not trust the generic MBR provided by the install.exe program,
you can still uninstall in the following manner:
a. Boot from a DOS diskette or exit into MSDOS mode.
b. At the command prompt, type:
fdisk /mbr
This method uses the undocumented fdisk option which writes a generic MBR into
your hard drive.
2.4.4 Create Rescue Diskette
"Create Rescue Diskette" allows you to install Power Boot into a diskette.
This is useful if a virus program destroys Power Boot installation. Installing
Windows 95 after Power Boot has been installed will also overwrite Power Boot.
3. Using Power Boot
3.1 When you start
To start up Power Boot, you must boot from your hard disk. Some BIOSes allow you
to set the boot sequence such that you can only boot from Drive C. This is ideal
for Power Boot. If you need to boot from Drive A, you would let
Power Boot start first, and then select to boot from Drive A.
In this way, you avoid booting from Drive A accidentally, which is a primary
means of catching boot sector virus programs.
The following description applies when you have not enabled Quiet Mode.
When Power Boot boots up, you will see the main screen. The copyright message is
on the top. The bottom line contain help information.
Power Boot will enumerate all the partitions in your hard disk and display
them in the center portion of your screen. If you have more than 13 partitions,
there will be more than one page of screen information.
Initially, there is a timeout of 10 seconds. This timeout value can be changed
(see Section 4).
At the end of 10 seconds, the system will boot from the default partition.
Initially, this will be the active partition in the first hard drive. If you
boot from another partition, that partition will become the default one. This
will apply even for partitions which are not in the first hard drive or
those in extended partitions.
At this stage, five keys are valid : Up/Down arrow, ENTER, F1, F2 and F3.
Pressing any of these keys will stop the timeout countdown. Pressing any
other key will skip the timeout and boot the PC from the default boot
partition.
Pressing F1 will display a help panel indicating the keys which are valid.
Pressing F2 will toggle the display between dummies and expert mode. Dummies mode
shows less information than expert mode and prevents information overload!
The default mode is dummies mode. This mode will show the drive, partition name
and partition size. Expert mode will show if a partition is active i.e.
bootable, drive, what type of partition, partition name and partition size.
Type of partition will either be primary partition or logical drive. Note that
some operating systems like Linux or OS/2 can be booted from logical drives.
If you have not yet named your partitions, the partition name used will be the
system ID found in the partition table and you will see labels like DOS/FAT16,
Win95/FAT32 or Win95/FAT32/LBA etc.
If you think that such labels are confusing, you will appreciate the ability
to name the partitions.
Pressing F3 will provide you a list of options. See Section 4 for a
description.
3.2 Partition Operations
Navigation in the main Power Boot screen is achieved by the Up/Down arrow
keys and ENTER is to select the partition you want to work on. Once a
partition is selected, you will see a mini-menu with options.
There several options when a partition is selected:
a. Boot Partition/Drive
b. Hide Partition
c. Unhide Partition
d. Ignore Partition
e. Show All Partitions
f. Install OS Upgrade
g. Install OEM OS
h. Rename Partition
i. Set As Default Boot
j. Set Boot Profile
k. Clear Boot Profile
l. Set OS/2 Drive Letter
Depending on the type of partition selected, not all the options may
be available.
Again, navigation is achieved by the Up/Down arrow keys and ENTER is to
select the option.
Once an option is selected, the hard disk is updated and the updated
partition's information is shown on screen. None of the operations performed
can destroy data on the hard disks as you can always undo them (albeit
manually).
3.2.1 Boot Partition/Drive
Booting from a partition will unhide it and make it active.
3.2.2 Hide/Unhide Partition
Only DOS/HPFS/NTFS/Win9x partitions can be hidden. The method of hiding
partitions follows that of the OS/2 Boot Manager/FDISK programs.
When a partition is hidden, its name will be shown between <> brackets.
3.2.3 Ignore Partition
If a partition is not bootable, you can ask Power Boot to ignore it.
In this way, the partition is not shown on the main Power Boot screen to
confuse other users.
3.2.4 Show All Partitions
This is the opposite of "Ignore Partition". Power Boot will show all
the
partitions it finds.
3.2.5 Install OS Upgrade
Upgrading an operating system option will make the partition active.
3.2.6 Install OEM OS
This option will make the partition active and HIDE all other partitions.
This is useful for installing OEM versions of Windows 95. This is because OEM versions
of Windows95 will NOT install if they detect an operating system already installed
in another partition. By hiding all the other partitions, we prevent the Windows95
setup program from finding out what is in these other partitions.
3.2.7 Rename Partition
This option allows you to attribute up to 10 characters to a partition. This
is in order to help you easily identify partitions. For example, you may have
two different versions of MSDOS, one in German, the other in English. You can name
on MSDOS-D (for Deutsch) and the other MSDOS-E.
3.2.8 Set As Default Boot
This option sets the current partition as the default partition to boot from.
This feature must be enabled with the Default Boot Mode in the F3 Options
Menu (section 4). Power Boot's default action is to boot from the last
partition that was booted from.
3.2.9 Set Boot Profile
This feature allows you to specify which partitions should be hidden or
unhidden when a given partition is booted from. This feature must be enabled
with the Boot Profiles entry in the F3 Options Menu (section 4).
The example given in the introduction is when you want to boot NT, you want to
hide your FAT partitions. Then when you boot from Windows 98, you want to
unhide your FAT partitions. Rather than doing it manually, hiding or unhiding
one partition at a time, Power Boot will do it for you.
In our example, you first set the profile to boot NT. First, you use the F3
Options Menu to enable Boot Profiles.
Then you manually hide all the FAT partitions using the "Hide Partition"
option. Move the cursor to the NT boot partition and press ENTER. Select
"Set Boot Profile" and press ENTER. Voila, you have set the boot profile
for
booting NT. Now, whenever you boot NT, the FAT partitions will be hidden.
To set the Windows 98 boot profile, manually unhide all the FAT partitions.
You might also want to hide the NTFS partitions. Then move the cursor to the
Windows 98 boot partition, press ENTER. Select "Set Boot Profile" and
press
ENTER. And you have just set the boot profile for booting Windows 98. Now,
whenever you boot Windows 98, the FAT partitions will be unhidden.
3.2.10 Clear Boot Profile
This is the opposite of "Set Boot Profile". You clear the boot profile
information of the selected partition.
In the above example, clearing the boot profile of the Windows 98 partition
will mean that when you boot Windows 98, only the Windows 98 partition will
be unhidden. The other FAT partitions will remain hidden, if you had
previously booted from NT.
3.2.11 Set OS/2 Drive Letter
If you are booting OS/2 from the current partition, this option allows you to
set the drive letter of the partition.
Previously, you could only set a single OS/2 boot drive letter regardless
of how many bootable OS/2 partitions you have. Now, the drive letter is
assigned individually to each partition.
This feature must be enabled with the OS/2 Boot Drive option in the F3 Options
Menu. In addition, the partition selected must be an HPFS-type partition.
To use this option, enable it in the F3 Options Menu (section 4) and then
select this option. You will see a box with:
OS/2 Boot Drive Letter : NONE
Pressing SPACE will step you through all possible drive letters : from C to
Z and back to NONE again.
Pressing ENTER will save the drive letter.
Pressing ESC will abandon the changes.
4. Power Boot F3 Options Menu
This is a set of options which determines how Power Boot
functions at a
global, rather than at the partition level.
Use the up/down arrow keys to move the cursor, ENTER to select
and ESC to quit.
4.1 Quiet Mode
4.1.1 Setting Quiet Mode
When you press ENTER for Quiet Mode, you will see a box with:
Quiet Mode Off
This is the initial state. Press SPACE and the box will change to:
Quiet Mode On
Continue pressing SPACE to toggle Quiet Mode on or off. Press ESC if you
want to abandon the changes or ENTER to keep them.
4.1.2 How Quiet Mode works
Once you have enabled Quiet Mode, the next time Power Boot starts, you
will not see the blue Power Boot partition selection screen.
Instead, you will see a dark screen with the Power Boot copyright message.
If you do not do anything, the normal timeout will occur and the default
partition will be booted.
Pressing ESC will short circuit the normal timeout and boot the default
partition immediately.
Pressing SPACE will start the Power Boot partition selection screen with
a list of all potentially bootable partitions as described in Section 3.
If password is enabled, Quiet Mode will be enabled by default and pressing
SPACE will prompt you for the password.
4.2 Timeout
Timeout is not longer fixed at 10 seconds but can vary from none to
32 seconds.
When you press ENTER for Timeout selection, you will see a box with:
Timeout(in seconds) : 10
Pressing SPACE will step through the possible timeout values (in ascending
order). Pressing ESC will abandon the selection and pressing ENTER will
save the timeout value selected.
4.3 Password
4.3.1 Creating a Password
When you press ENTER for password selection, you will see a box with:
Enter password:
Passwords can be up to 6 characters in length and are limited to letters and
numbers (no symbols). Uppercase (capitals) and lowercase letters are the same.
Once you have entered the password, press ENTER to save it or ESC to abandon.
Note: Password encoding is relatively simple. Therefore if a high level of
security is really required, other means must be used.
4.3.2 Removing a Password
To remove a password, you must be able to go into the Power Boot
partition selection screen, press F3, choose the Password option. Then
when prompted to enter a new password, just press ENTER. This will disable
the password.
4.4 Password Mode
This allows you to select how password works : whether you want the
password to prevent access to Power Boot ("Prevent Access"), or to prevent
anyone from changing the Power Boot configuration ("Options Protect").
The default mode is "Prevent Access".
4.4.1 Booting with Password Enabled in "Prevent Access" Mode
When a password is enabled and the Password Mode is "Prevent Access",
Quiet Mode is enabled.
When you press SPACE at the Power Boot copyright message, you will be prompted
for the password.
Entering a wrong password will prompt you again for the password. This will
occur until you enter the correct password or you reboot the computer.
Entering the correct password will start up the Power Boot partition selection
screen.
4.4.2 Options Protect
If Options Protect is selected, pressing F3 or trying to select any of the
partition options described in Section 3 will result in a prompt for the
password.
The only option that will not require a password is the Boot Partition/Drive
option.
4.5 OS/2 Boot Drive Letter
4.5.1 How to use this feature
AUTO means that an OS/2 logical drive will be booted as D: and an HPFS
primary partition will be booted as C:.
If you have installed OS/2 as drive D:, you can move the hard drive to
be the second hard drive in your system, and then boot OS/2 as D:. This
will effectively boot OS/2 from a second hard drive.
This means that you can have one hard drive dedicated to OS/2 and one to
MSDOS, Windows 95, NT etc.
Note that if you have several OS/2 boot partitions, you will have to select
the OS/2 Boot Drive Letter for each partition before you boot it.
4.5.2 Compatibility Issues
In some cases, you may still need to re-install some applications. This is
especially so if you have previously been booting with Boot Manager.
We have observed that if you installed OS/2 on a logical partition with
a FAT primary partition visible (not hidden) during the installation, then
you must ALWAYS have this primary FAT partition visible whenever you boot
OS/2 from the logical partition.
Similarly, if all the FAT primary partitions are hidden during the OS/2
installation, then they must remain hidden every time you boot OS/2.
4.6 DOS Swap Drive Mode
4.6.1 Setting Swap Drive Mode
When you press ENTER for Swap Drive Mode selection, you will see a box
with:
Drive Swap Off
This is the initial state. Press SPACE and the box will change to:
Drive Swap On
Continue pressing SPACE to toggle Drive Swap on or off. Press ESC if you
want to abandon the changes or ENTER to keep them.
4.6.2 How It Works
If you choose to boot from a partition that is not on the first hard drive,
this hard drive will be logically swapped with the first one.
For example, assume that you have C: on one drive and D: on a second drive. Booting
from D: will swap the drives so that as far as the operating system is concerned,
D: is now C: and C: is now D:! This works well with MSDOS, Win95 in safe mode or
any operating system that uses the BIOS for hard drive accesses.
The usefulness of Drive Swap Mode is that you can now keep that old
MSDOS/Win3.x drive and install a new multi-giga drive with Win95 or some
other 32-bit OS that can only live on the first hard drive.
One point to note for Win3.x users is that Drive Swap Mode will not work with
32-bit disk access. Make sure you disable that before trying to use Swap
Mode.
If Drive Swap Mode is on and you boot from a partition that is not on the
first hard drive, the Drive Swap code will be loaded into memory and that
will occupy 1KByte of conventional memory.
NOTE : Drive Swap Mode, if enabled, will always be activated whenever you boot
from a hard drive other than the first one.
4.7 Win9x Drive Swap Mode
4.7.1 Setting Win9x Drive Swap Mode
Beginning from Power Boot Version 2.15, Win9x Drive Swap will be
automatically enabled if you try booting a Windows 95/98 partition from any
hard drive other than the first one.
Win9x Drive Swap mode allows you to select if you want Power Boot to
automagically hide the FAT primary partitions of preceding drives when
you boot Win9x from a hard drive. For example, to boot Win95 from your
second hard disk, you will need to hide the primary FAT partitions on your
first hard disk. Instead of doing this manually, Power Boot can do it
for you. Logical drives on your first hard disk will not be hidden and can
be accessed.
This partition hiding is necessary because in most cases, you will have
installed Windows 95 as Drive C. The first visible FAT partition will be
labeled as Drive C: and you want this partition to be the want you are
booting from.
4.7.2 How Win9x Drive Swap Works
Win9x Drive Swap will tell the Windows 95 boot up code that it is not booting
from the first hard drive.
In order for this to work correctly, you will have to hide all FAT16/FAT32
primary partitions in the hard drive before the one you are booting from.
Note that you do not have to hide any logical drives on the first hard drive.
In this way, you can put your data on the logical drives, and share them
between the Operating System residing of the first hard drive and the new
Operating System on the second hard drive.
Note : Win9x Drive Swap will not be activated when DOS Swap is enabled.
4.7.3 Installing Win9x on a Second/Third/... Hard Drive
Method A:
To install Windows 95 on a second hard drive, you should connected it as the
first one. Install Windows 95 as drive C: and then re-connect the drive to
its final position (as the second, third, fourth etc hard drive).
This is our recommended method of installation.
Method B:
Alternatively, connect the target drive normally. Partition it using
Win95's FDISK or our PDISK. Format the partition making it bootable by
using FORMAT x: /S (where x is the drive letter of the target drive). Copy
over the necessary config.sys with the CDROM driver and MSCDEX.EXE.
Reboot the PC. When Power Boot starts up, enable BIOS Drive Swap.
Let the PC boot to the target drive.
Now, install Win9x (Win95 or Win98). In this case, you will not have to
re-install Power Boot after the Win9x installation.
Let Win9x finish its installation until you see the final Win9x user interface
screen with all the icons.
Now, shutdown the PC and restart it. When Power Boot starts up, disable
DOS Drive Swap and choose 'Hide Partitions' for Win95 Drive Swap Mode.
Select the target drive to boot from. Now you will boot into the target
drive.
Voila! You have just installed Win9x into a another hard drive.
The FAT primary partitions on the first drive are hidden. When you next
select to boot from a primary partition on the first drive, the partition
will be unhidden automatically.
4.8 Default Boot Mode
When Power Boot times out, it can either boot the last partition that was
booted from, or it can boot from a default partition that the user has
pre-selected.
This option determines which mode Power Boot uses.
The modes are "Use Last Boot" for booting from the last partition, and
"User Default" for user pre-selected default boot partition.
4.9 Boot Profiles
This allows you to enable the boot profiles feature. By default, boot
profiles is disabled.
4.10 Dumbness Level
Two options are available for Dummies Mode : Just Dumb (default) or Very Dumb.
Just Dumb shows a more uncluttered Power Boot screen but otherwise provides
all the features of Power Boot.
Very Dumb shows the same uncluttered screen but when you move the cursor to a partition
and press ENTER, Power Boot will IMMEDIATELY attempt to boot from that partition.
You do not have to press ENTER twice (once to get the partition menu and the second
time to choose the Boot Partition/Drive option) in order to boot a partition.
5. Pointers:
Here are some hints for using Power Boot. If you have found
other tricks or
important points to note, please do not hesitate to let us know.
5.1 Window 95/98 Installation
Windows 95/98 installation will over-write the master boot record of drive C.
If Power Boot is installed in drive C, you will need to reinstall Power Boot.
5.2 Linux Users
We are sure that LILO is much more powerful than Power Boot... However, if you
are using Power Boot with Linux, don't forget to install LILO in the boot
sector of the partition from which you want to boot Linux.
We know that Debian automatically installs LILO in the boot sector so that
you can simply install Power Boot and launch Linux or another OS in another
partition.
5.3 Using Partition Magic or Partition-It
Once you have used Partition Magic or Partition-It to create new partitions or
resize old ones, your partition tables would have changed.
DO NOT, in ANY circumstances attempt to remove Power Boot with INSTALL.EXE.
Doing so will reload the OLD partition tables.
In order to remove Power Boot, in this case, go to MSDOS mode and run
FDISK /MBR. This will write a generic partition sector into your hard disk.
Apparently, Partition-It will overwrite some sectors used by Power Boot. When you
reboot after using Partition-It, you will get a brief Bad Checksum message.
You will need to re-install Power Boot.
5.4 Rescue Diskette
When you use Power Boot from the Rescue Diskette, not all options will be
available. Partition naming will not be available as well as most of the
F3 options. The only F3 option that is available is OS/2 Boot Drive Letter.
The reason is that most of the options information is stored in the hard
drive along with the Power Boot code. When you boot from the rescue diskette, we
do not want to assume that the hard drive is available for storing this information.
6. Compatibility:
Power Boot is resident in the Master Boot Record(MBR) of
your hard disk. It
will not work with most other MBR programs except Ontrack Disk Manager. It will
not work with EZ-Drive. EZ-Drive support will be available in early 1998.
The registered version of Power Boot is Power-Chain-enabled and will co-exist in
the MBR with other Power-Chain software like The Z-pA or The ZppA.
7. Problems:
As in any other program, there're probably bugs lying around.
Bluesky Innovations specifically disclaims all other warranties,
expressed or
implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability
and fitness of a particular purpose with respects to defects in the diskette
(if distributed on magnetic media) or documentation, and the program license
with respect to any particular application, use, or purpose. In no event
should Bluesky Innovations be liable for any loss of profit or any other
damages, including but not limited to incidental, consequential, or other
damages.
System Commander is a trademark of V Communications Inc @Macarlo, Inc. @Macarlo's Shareware & Web OS/2 Java Lobby Member
Java Site Accredited