[ale] Re: [C-LUG] FWIW Dept. of Philosophy

[Pierre Abbat]

>This would not be a problem (except for the dent in the ceiling where my
>head stopped short during a balistic exercise), except when I updated the
>disk on the server, I had looked at the enclosed disk utility from the
>manufacturer. I cann't get rid of the utility now (so far), and since the
>stupid thing is looking for a windows partition or something - everything
>hangs on boot until you hit return.

Is it EZ-Drive or one of those? I had one on littlecat, but had to remove it to
install Linux. Windows still works without it (though it might not with other
drives). It put the partition table in the second sector, after itself in the
first.

Here's the boot sector of a machine that has never had anything but Linux on it:

[root at neofelis Fictionary]# dd if=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1|od -t x1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
0000000 eb 69 4c 49 4c 4f 01 00 14 00 5a 00 00 00 00 00
0000020 fc 49 e7 36 14 23 80 ac 01 15 23 80 ac 01 13 23
0000040 80 ac 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 17 23 80 ac 01
0000060 2d 23 80 85 01 2e 23 80 85 01 2f 23 80 85 01 30
0000100 23 80 85 01 31 23 80 85 01 32 23 80 85 01 33 23
0000120 80 85 01 34 23 80 85 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000140 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 b8 c0 07 8e d8
0000160 8c 06 66 00 89 36 64 00 89 1e 68 00 88 16 6a 00
0000200 b8 00 9a 8e c0 b9 00 01 29 f6 29 ff fc f3 a5 ea
0000220 94 00 00 9a fa 8e d8 8e c0 bc 00 b0 b8 00 90 8e
0000240 d0 fb b0 0d e8 57 00 b0 0a e8 52 00 b0 4c e8 4d
0000260 00 be 30 00 bb 00 10 fc ad 89 c1 ad 89 c2 09 c8
0000300 74 20 46 e8 43 00 72 06 81 c3 00 02 eb ea 50 b0
0000320 20 e8 2a 00 58 88 e0 e8 12 00 31 c0 88 c2 cd 13
0000340 eb cf b0 49 e8 17 00 ea 00 00 00 9b 50 c0 e8 04
0000360 e8 01 00 58 24 0f 04 30 3c 3a 72 02 04 07 30 ff
0000400 b4 0e cd 10 c3 5a 59 5b c3 f6 c2 40 74 52 80 e2
0000420 bf 53 51 52 b4 08 cd 13 72 eb 88 f3 5a 88 16 6d
0000440 01 88 f2 30 f6 88 f7 58 51 86 cd d0 c5 d0 c5 80
0000460 e5 03 89 0e 6b 01 59 83 e1 3f f7 f1 fe c2 88 16
0000500 6e 01 31 d2 43 f7 f3 88 d6 8a 16 6d 01 3b 06 6b
0000520 01 77 13 86 c4 d0 c8 d0 c8 0a 06 6e 01 89 c1 5b
0000540 b8 01 02 cd 13 c3 5b 31 c0 f9 c3 00 00 00 00 00
0000560 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000700 01 01 84 ef 3f 13 10 3b 00 00 30 62 04 00 00 00
0000720 01 14 83 ef 3f df 40 9d 04 00 c0 10 2f 00 00 00
0000740 01 e0 83 ef 7f 67 00 ae 33 00 80 60 1f 00 00 00
0000760 41 68 05 ef ff 46 80 0e 53 00 f0 82 6e 00 55 aa
0001000

Compare that against your first and second sectors.

>I'm sorry, but wintel approaches are no way to run a railroad, they
>encourage dispicable habits. She was most embarrassed and contrite, but
>better habits would save her the confusion.

Since I've been using Linux, I now always close the drive window in Windows
before removing a floppy (and wonder "Does that really unmount it?").

phma