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date: 01-Oct-2000
The LILO source directory contains the source code to produce a diag-
nostic floppy disk for determining the BIOS capabilities of your sys-
tem, as well as the disk geometry of each of your hard drives.
Creating the floppy
===================
Change into the /usr/lib/lilo directory. Insert a formatted floppy
disk into the A: drive (/dev/fd0). Type the command "make". A bootable
floppy disk will be created.
Running the diagnostic
======================
Use CTRL-ALT-DELETE to re-boot your system from the floppy disk. This
allows the diagnostic program, disk.com, to interrogate your BIOS with-
out having an operating system between it and your BIOS and hardware.
The diagnostic program will report on the EBDA (Extended BIOS DATA Area),
as the size of this area affects where LILO loads into memory. It will
also report on your disk geometry: the number of cylinders, heads, and
sectors that LILO will see in trying to boot your machine. Sometimes
the diagnostic will report two different sets of geometry for the same
hard drive. This happens when the old BIOS call (fn=0x08, int=0x13),
which is limited to 1024 cylinders, is unable to address all sectors
on your disk. The second line is from the new BIOS call (the EDD packet
interface on int=0x13), which allows addressing all sectors on the
disk.
Caution
=======
If you have an older system, and run a "soft" BIOS, such as EZ-DRIVE,
MaxBlast, or Disk Manager, you must allow the soft BIOS to install first
from your hard drive, then follow the instructions to boot from floppy.
Remember, LILO will see the soft BIOS in booting from the hard drive,
so you must be sure that the diagnostic utility booted from floppy also
sees the soft BIOS. If you boot from the A: drive ahead of the C: drive
in this case, the diagnostic floppy report may be misleading.
John Coffman <johninsd@san.rr.com>
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