Hardware or OT? Boot order in the BIOS

  • Thread starter Thread starter meirman
  • Start date Start date
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meirman

I'm not sure if this is OT, but you seem to be the best place to ask.

Do most BIOSes these days allow choosing which partition one boots
from?

My friend gave me a mother board and manual a few months ago, and I
started assembling a computer. The BIOS would have allowed me to boot
from the C:, D:, E:, or F: partition (as well as floppies, Zips, and
CDs, of course). That would be great for testing I thought, and for
multiple OS's. I run win98 but would like to try Linux, and maybe
2000 or XP, and I'd like to have a test version of win98.

Then last month he gave me another mobo that would go up to 800 MHz
instead of just 400.

They are both Asus, the first one is P5A and the new one is A7M266.
The second one is about 2 1/2 years newer than the first.

They each have an Award BIOS.

BUT THIS new one only gives me the option of booting from each hard
drive, and right now I only have one. Later I expect to have two.
Not nearly as good as being able to use C, D, E, or F.


This is a big step back from the previous board. Am I missing
something?

I looked a bit for a bios upgrade, but didn't get anywhere.




Meirman
 
meirman said:
I'm not sure if this is OT, but you seem to be the best place to ask.

Do most BIOSes these days allow choosing which partition one boots
from?

My friend gave me a mother board and manual a few months ago, and I
started assembling a computer. The BIOS would have allowed me to boot
from the C:, D:, E:, or F: partition (as well as floppies, Zips, and
CDs, of course). That would be great for testing I thought, and for
multiple OS's. I run win98 but would like to try Linux, and maybe
2000 or XP, and I'd like to have a test version of win98.

Then last month he gave me another mobo that would go up to 800 MHz
instead of just 400.

They are both Asus, the first one is P5A and the new one is A7M266.
The second one is about 2 1/2 years newer than the first.

They each have an Award BIOS.

BUT THIS new one only gives me the option of booting from each hard
drive, and right now I only have one. Later I expect to have two.
Not nearly as good as being able to use C, D, E, or F.


This is a big step back from the previous board. Am I missing
something?

I looked a bit for a bios upgrade, but didn't get anywhere.
Click to expand...

I suspect the "C, D, E, F" selection on the first motherboard is a drive
select and not partitions because, for one, the 4 choices suspiciously
match the 4 drive capability of a dual channel IDE controller and, second,
it would probably be beyond a BIOS to hunt down partitions that are OS
specific to begin with.
 
I'm not sure if this is OT, but you seem to be the best place to ask.

Do most BIOSes these days allow choosing which partition one boots
from?

My friend gave me a mother board and manual a few months ago, and I
started assembling a computer. The BIOS would have allowed me to boot
from the C:, D:, E:, or F: partition (as well as floppies, Zips, and
Click to expand...

Those are drives, not partitions of the C drive.
CDs, of course). That would be great for testing I thought, and for
multiple OS's. I run win98 but would like to try Linux, and maybe
2000 or XP, and I'd like to have a test version of win98.
Click to expand...

I have Linux and Win98 on the C drive of one machine. At boot-up the
LILO (LInux LOader) asks which OS to boot up.
 
In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt on Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:56:46 -0500
(e-mail address removed) posted:
Those are drives, not partitions of the C drive.
Click to expand...

I knew you guys would know. Thanks to you and David. David, your
answers made sense to me. I don't always get these things.

I'm disappointed, but at least they didn't take a step backwards.
I have Linux and Win98 on the C drive of one machine. At boot-up the
LILO (LInux LOader) asks which OS to boot up.
Click to expand...

OK. Thanks. The test version of win98 was what I really wanted, and
which will come first. I'll guess I'll get Bootmagic or something, or
put in a second or even a third drive. I guess Bootmagic is easier
than going into the bios every time I want to change.

(I have a lot of software programs that won't work. Maybe changing
computers will make them work from the same harddrive I'm using now,
but if not, I wanted an empty version of WIN98 for testing and then I
would install all the problem software, one item at a time, testing
heavily after each one, to find out what is causing the problem. I'm
thinking maybe they are all stymied by just one or two reasons.

I have a list somewhere of programs that don't work, plus I'll
remember if I look at what I have. Fortunately they are things I
don't use and wouldn't use much, but still.


Meirman
 
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