How can I boot dos from HD and still run Microport 3.0e?

[John Hood]

In article <9282 at b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> zeeff at b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) writes:
>DOesn't typing "DOS" from the boot: prompt work?

It did when I first installed Microport 3.0e, and then later on it
stopped working.  I thought I was going batty when I tried it and it
didn't work.  I finally snorkeled around the install disks, and found
that there's actually *two* different hard disk bootstraps-- the one
that gets written onto the HD boot track when you install, and the
other one that is part of the runtime cpio set.  The first has the DOS
boot feature, the second doesn't.  Somewhere along the line, I or one
of the Microport utilities must have reinstalled the bootstrap from
the one in /etc.  Sigh.  I haven't actually tried it yet, but the cure
appears to be simple: install the bootstrap from the filesystem boot
floppy you got with your copy of Microport.

Actually, I have Bell Tech Unix 3.0 installed on my hard drives just
now (I'm playing with their Blit card), and my respect for Microport
has gone up a bit: the Bell Tech install was just as bad as, if not
worse than, the Microport install (it took four tries to format the
hard disk...)  Also, Microport has better serial drivers (heretical,
isn't it?), support for 1.4M floppies, multiscreens, my tape drive,
etc etc.  Losing the use of my Everex tape drive because of Bell
Tech's inane, stupid, idiotic incompatibility PAL on their Everex tape
is a particularly tough pill to swallow, especially because if I
somehow get the Bell Tech PAL and install it, I apparently lose the
use of the Everex MS-DOS software, because of their own copy
protection hack.

  --jh-- 
John Hood, Biar Games snail: 10 Spruce Lane, Ithaca NY 14850 BBS: 607 257 3423
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