New version hide/unhide Linux partitions

Power Boot is a utility that allows booting from different partitions or hard drives made by BlueSky Innovations LLC. I, @Macarlo, registered user, just received the zip with a new version 3.0.7. The developer have corrected some minor bugs and added the ability to hide/unhide Linux ext2fs and swap partitions. This should allow cohabitation of Solaris and Linux on the same PC as well as different linux distributions. I'm using Power Boot here running fine and I access all OSs I've on my machine with it without problems. I recommend!

Power Boot 3.0 User's Guide

Copyright (C) 1997-99 BlueSky Innovations LLC

All rights reserved.

NOTE : Installing this software implies that you have read and agreed to the license information in the file license.txt.

1. Features

Power Boot allows you to boot different Operating Systems from different partitions on different hard disk drives.

Features include:

- 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.

- 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. Hiding a partition will prevent an operating system from accessing it. With version 3.0.7, you can now hide/unhide Linux partitions. This will allow installing different Linux distributions on your PC.

- Hid a partition and forgot what it was? With Version 3.x, a hidden partition is now displayed between <> brackets.

- Show/ignore Partitions : 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.

You can also configure Power Boot to boot from the partition that was booted the last time. This is useful if you boot from an extended partition or from a partition on a hard drive other than the first one.

- 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, unlike another multi-boot program.

- 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.

Version 3.x has a new mode : 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.

- 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.

- 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 Power Boot will immediately boot from that partition instead of presenting the partition menu.

- 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.

For OS/2 users with maintenance partitions, now you can set drive letters for each bootable HPFS partition.

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 : support@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 95/98 after Power Boot has been installed will also overwritePower 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 youboot from another partition, that partition will become the default one. Thiswill 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, SPACE, 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.In the "Very Dumb" mode, ENTER or SPACE will immediately boot the partition selected.In the "Just Dumb" Dummies mode or Expert Mode, the ENTER or SPACE keys are 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.

Press the F3 key to access these options

The options are :

- Quiet Mode

- Timeout

- Set Password

- Password Mode

- OS/2 Boot Drive

- DOS Drive Swap

- Win9x Drive Swap

- Default Boot Mode

- Boot Profiles

- Dumbness 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.

By default, Power Boot uses the Just Dumb mode. This means that the ENTER or SPACE keys will invoke the partition menu.

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

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 the Debian distribution 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.

Partition-It and Partition Magic will overwrite some sectors used by Power Boot. When you reboot, you will get a brief Bad Checksum message.You will need to re-install Power Boot.

5.4 Rescue Diskette

With effect from version 3.0.3, the version of Power Boot loaded from the rescue diskette will have full functionality.

5.5 Anti-Virus Programs

Norton Anti-Virus may report Power Boot as a virus. We suggest using McAfee instead, which positively tests for virus rather than assuming that anything that is not Microsoft is a virus.

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.

If you are using EZ-Drive, email us at info@blueskyinnovations.com and we will rush you Power Bios Lite, which works like EZ-Drive.

Power Boot is Power-Chain-enabled and will co-exist in the MBR with other Power-Chain software like The Z-pA, The ZppA, The ZapA, SMART Pro, Y2000 Proand others.

7. Problems

As in any other program, there are probably bugs lying around.

Please send problem/bug reports, suggestions, critiques to:

support@blueskyinnovations.com

Remember, we are here to make Power Boot easy to use. If you do not like something or have a better way of doing it, let us know and we will put it in. Many of the features here have been added because of your feedback.

While in the beta phase, we have also received suggestions. Rather thandelay the release of 3.0, we will include these suggestions into version 3.1.

8. Mailing List

Once you purchase Power Boot, you will be put on a mailing list so that we can send you free updates on Power Boot. Yes, it is not a mistake : you do NOT have to pay for the next latest and greatest Power Boot.

This mailing list is intended for one-way communications only : from us to you.

If, for any reason, you wish to be removed from the list, please email

list@blueskyinnovations.com

Disclaimer:

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.

CONTACT AUTHOR

Bluesky Innovations
530 Berryessa Road #321,
San Jose, CA 95132, USA.
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