Confirmation requested

Wayne Johnston (waynej@kos.net)
Tue, 7 Jan 1997 11:42:02 -0500

After trying in vain to get Linux running on my PC I have been advised that
it can't be done - at least, not if I want to maintain a DOS partition on
the same PC. I've been told that the boot sector hack that allows DOS to
recognize a hard drive over 512 MB is incompatible with Linux. Is there
really nothing I can do apart from investing in new hardware?

That's the basic question. Here are some of the details...

I have my disk divided like this below. I use hda4 as a minimal boot
partition for diagnosing problems with hda2. There have been nothing but
problems. I have installed Linux (Slackware) three times but it keeps
getting scrambled.

Boot Begin Start End Blocks ID
/dev/hda1 * 1 1 407 205096 6 Dos 16-bit >=32M
/dev/hda2 408 408 814 205128 83 Linux native
/dev/hda3 815 815 855 20664 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda4 856 856 1024 85176 83 Linux native

My disk geometry is 1086 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors, 547 MB.

When my system boots, I see the following...

>> SAMSUNG WideDisk BOOT DRIVER VERSION 1.01
>> MASTER IDE DRIVE: SAMSUNG SHD-30560A (APRO-5) SSI

This, I've been told, is the root of my problem.

Wayne Johnston
311 College Street
Kingston ON K7L 4M3
(613) 544-5851
waynej@kos.net