multiple bootable partitions

[Stig Jacobsen]

rreid at csuchico.edu (Ralph Reid) writes:

>I am currently running MS-DOS 3.3 on a 80386 33 MHz machine.  I would
>like to add something like UNIX or XENIX to a separate partition on
>the 360MB hard disk.  I would like to then be able to boot up on
>either MS-DOS or UNIX.  How do I do it?  Is there any software
>available which might allow this type of operation?

The software you need is included with MS-Dos :-)  After you have
installed Unix, you can use FDisk (under either Dos or Unix) to
select between the partition to boot from (at the next boot).

The best would be if one were asked at boot-time which partition
that should be used for this boot, but ..

Just one thing to be aware of: Since you are using Dos 3.30 (not
4.0), it is very important that your bootable Dos-partition is
entirely contained within the first 65535 sectors (32meg) of the
disk - otherwise you won't be able to boot Dos from the
harddrive.

I just learned the hard way... On a 120mb disk, I installed Unix
on the first 90 mb and Dos 3.30 on the last 32 mb. All sorts of
problems and I had to repartition the whole drive.. (This is why
I have time for reading news - the other machine is busy
restoring a backup ATM ;-).

Note: All this doesn't apply to Dos 4.0x; it works fine even when
not booted from the first 32mb - but my vpix didn't recognize the
Dos 4.0 partition - lotsa fun...
--
Stig Jacobsen
shj at login.dkuug.dk