Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive

[Rugxulo <ru...@gm...>]

Hi,

On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 11:33 PM, John R. Sowden
<js...@am...> wrote:
>
> I have a disk with Linux and win98 dos on it.  I opt with function key
> to select which OD.

Please don't OD.    :-)    I assume you meant "OS".

> Default is DOS.  While in DOS, I executed sys c: from a floppy that I
> downloaded from the fd site.  Now when I boot to this OS, I get, after
> the copyright notice and before a device? line in the config .sys, the
> following:
>
> - InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0b: with calculated
> values
>    81-194-63 instead of   75-254-63
> C: HD1, Pri[ 1], CHS=   0-1-1, start=     0 MB, size=  603MB
> WARNING: using suspect partition Ext:1 FS 0b: with calculat4ed values
> 81-196-1
> instead of   77-1-1
> WARNING: using suspect partitionj
>
> Oh well ya'll got the idea.  5 warning messages, each "calculated values
> and "instead of"
> values that are different.  Finally it runs (haven't dried Suse yet).

I had thought there was a way to ignore (quiet) such warnings, but I
don't see anything obvious in "sys config":

http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/sys.htm

Now that I think about it, it's not much of a difference. It may just
be your SuSE boot manager (stage 1.5? stage2?) hidden somewhere. If
DOS still boots and runs, you're probably not totally hosed. (Do you
know what boot manager is used for your install of Linux?)

> Have I written over my MBR or worse?

Well, technically, yes, I'm pretty sure that's what SYS.COM does, it
writes a boot sector to the MBR (master boot record). The mismatched
numbers are from the partition table, also included in the MBR,
presumably set with FDISK or similar tool when creating the FAT
drive(s).

Since you say Win98, I'm assuming this is FAT32, which means you "may"
have a backup boot sector somewhere. But I don't know offhand how to
recover it (though I'm fairly certain TestDisk can do it). Though I
don't know if that's a good idea, and I'm not sure it's worth worrying
about, but presumably someone else here has some more (better) info.
You could also try to take a look at the raw hard drive with a tool
like (wDE or similar) to see what is actually present at "77-1-1" (to
see if it really is your Linux loader).