
TIPS ON USING MBM

                                                             March  10, 2002


  This is a document that collected informations on using on the each OS
  or impotant notes. When you have any questions, please read this document
  first, you may find out the answer on that.


MBM SUPPORT SITE


  MBM is suppoted on the web. The primaly development and supprt site is
  as follows. There is latest version and support tools.

  http://elm-chan.org/fsw/mbm/mbm_e.html



WHEN USE MBM WITOUT REPARTITIONING


  When build multi OS envilonment with the MBM, you will have to reinstall
  all OSs. Because MBM doen't have powerful re-partitioning tool such as it
  can re-partition with retaining its data. When reserve any area in an using
  drive, please use any other re-partitioning tool such as fips or others.

  When build multi OS envilonment into the new drive, it is not require to
  re-partition old drive. However, most of installers are not supporting
  to install into second or later drive, so that you may temporary have to
  swap physical drive number in order to install the new OS correctly.



CONFIRMED OS


  Following OSs are confirmed that which OS can be booted with MBM. Please
  refer to support site for latest information.

   PC DOS 6.3
   MS-DOS 6.2
   Windows 9X
   WindowsNT 3.51
   WindowsNT 4.0
   Linux
   FreeBSD
   NetBSD
   BeOS
   B-right/V
   Solaris
   Windows 2000
   Windows Me
   NetBSD
   Windows XP
   OpenBSD
   Plan 9
   EOTA



  DOS/Windows9X/WindowsNT
  

  These OSs is not supporting to boot from second drive or later. MBM is
  booting them forcibily, so that any trouble can occure when installing
  or system maintainance.
  
  Booted partition becomes logical drive number C:. Any other DOS partitions
  are assined to D, E, F and following in order of partition table. 
  However, when there are logical drive partition, two physical drives or
  more, that order becomes unknown (it seems there is a roule of assgnment).

  Normaly, the primaly DOS partition is type of FAT16(32M..2G), FAT32, FAT32X,
  and HPFS/NTFS When create them, use each type of the partition as follows:

    FAT16(32M-2G)         16bit FAT. For MSDOS, PCDOS or Windows.
    FAT32                 32bit FAT. For Windows95 OSR2 or later.
    FAT32X, FAT16X        These can contain cylinder #1024 or avobe.
    HPFS/NTFS             For OS/2 and WindowsNT based OS.
    FAT12, FAT16          Small partitions


  PC DOS 6.3/MS-DOS 6.2
  
  When the partition is placed at 2GB or avobe from top of the drive, 
  it cannot boot from there. This is a general spec on the DOS. Therefore, 
  top part of the drive must be assinged for them.

  When booted from secnd drive or later, it may occure any error due to
  conflict ASPI manager.

  When boot from secnd drive or later, the partition is placed first order
  of the partition table. If not, it may not able to boot.


  Windows 9X/Me
  
  When install Wdindows9X, boot manager will be over written with a standard
  boot loader by the installer. Thererfore, boot manager have to re-install
  after installation.

  The installer supports to install into only C: of the first drive. When
  install Windows9X, format the target partition whth copy system files,
  restert computer, boot from there and start to install. In this time,
  make sure that any other DOS partition is masked ("m" mark) in order to
  avoid interferance by installer.

  When you like to install Windows9X into the second drive or later, it
  have to place the drive as first drive. If there is free partition on the 
  first drive, I think easy that install there and then move all files into
  the target partition.

  On the IDE drives, it may cannot boot from slave drive.

  When boot form second drive or later, its partiton must be put at the
  first of partition table. If not, it may fail to boot.


  Windows NT
  
  When you like to install WindowsNT into the second drive or later, it
  have to place the drive as first drive.

  When WindowsNT is booted from second drive and apply a service pack,
  it may occure any error. In this case, place the drive temporary as first
  drive.


  Linux
  
  LILO must be installed into any partition, not MBR.

  Linux requires some partition, 'root', 'user' and 'swap'. These can be
  placed into an extend partition. The extend partition is like a physical
  drive in the physical drive. And LILO can also be installed into the pseudo
  MBR of the extend partition. However, MBM cannot edit the extend partition,
  so that any other partitioning tool shuld be used when edit inside extend
  partition.

  LILO 21.3 or later are required when boot from avobe 8GB.


  FreeBSD
  
  R4.1 or later is required when boot from avobe 8GB.


  BeOS
  
  It can also boot from logical drive.



USING ON THE WINDOWS 9X


  On the Windows 9Xs MS-DOS prompt or MSDOS mode, direct accessing to the
  physical drive is locked out. The lock out can be disabled with LOCK
  command, the partition table editor and installer will able to be used.




BIOS RELATED


  Unable to reboot when after booted from 2nd or later drive.
  
  Because some BIOSes halt with error message before execute MBR when there
  is no active partition on the first drive. When after booted from second or
  later drive, it will become this state.

  MBM R0.30 or later has a function that to prevent this problem. It is enabled
  by placing a special dummy partition "Unknown[F0h]" on the first drive. When
  boot from second drive or later, boot manager will activate the dummy
  partition, too (if exist). Thus it does not get no active partition on the
  first drive. To use non-DOS partition is to avoid affect to any OS.
  When create the dummy partition, only one cyinder is sufficient for it. And
  it can be used for extend menu. However, number of available partitions on
  the first drive will be decreased by enabling this feature.

  If there is not DOS or Windows9X system on the second or later drive, to set
  boot mode of the patitions placed on the second or later drive to 1 can also
  prevent this problem.


  Virus warning
  
  When enable virus warning feature, it may report virus warning every boot.
  Because boot manager updates partition table on the all drives in order to
  ensure only the target partition is activated. In this case, the virus
  warning feature must be disabled.


  Difference in parameters label between editor
  
  The CHS paraemters editor displays often differs from CHS paraemters shown
  in label. Because the BIOS converts the CHS parameter as easy to handle,
  and partition table editor gets the parameters from BIOS.


  Cylinder number at the LBA mode
  
  The partitions are always aligned to cylinder boundary. Because the FDISK
  manages partition table in such way, MBM also follows the partition
  management rule, which is defined on the specification book of PCDOS.
  When BIOS supports LBA mode, MBM accesses hard disk in LBA mode interface.
  However, to keep compatibility between old OSs, MBM manages in unit of
  number of sectors per cylinder, which is calcurated from heads and sectors.
  Therefore, on the avobe 8GB of harddisk, cylinder number larger than 1024
  is used.


  Which is the first drive?
  
  Boot manager and extend menu are always installed into the first drive.
  However, when boot from diskette and there are both IDE and SCSI drives,
  it may become uncertainly that whichi is the first drive. MBM works with
  only drive numbers that BIOS reports, so that MBM does not notice what
  kind of the interface type. Therefore, the drive be installed depends on
  which drive is assined as first drive by BIOS.
  When boot from hard disk, the drive that executed its MBR is first drive.
  However, when the boot sequense is set as FDD->SCSI->IDE and boot from FDD, 
  the IDE can get first drive even if SCSI has priority over IDE in boot
  sequense. This can be checked with partition table editor. 
  To avoid this problem, please disable drives temporary that not for install
  during install boot manager or extend menu, or boot up through target drive.



  Mismatch between partition and menu item
  
  When install boot manager, search partitions in all drives attached on
  the PC and initialize name table with its partition type. These names will
  not changed until rename menu items, so that correspondence between
  partition and menu item can be mismatched due to repartitioning or
  exchanging drive.



  Partition Mask
  
  Boot manager can mask/unmask any partition with boot menu. Masked partition
  will not be recoginazed by any OSs. This is realized by converting partition
  ID, which was defined by OS/2 boot manager.

       Normal             Masked
   01h,04h0Fh <> 11h,14h0x1Fh

  An "m" is shown in the status area of the masked partiton. This function
  affects only DOS partitions, any other partitions, such as Linux, are not
  affected.

  NOTE: If once a partition is mapped by Windows 2000 as a valid drive, the
  partition might be mapped again even if it has been masked. To unmap the
  partition, you have to edit system registry. For example, if a partition
  has been masked but it is mapped again as D:, delete \DosDevices\D: and
  follows under \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices and then reboot
  computer. But this operation is little dangerous.


