From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 10 09:28:57 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0ABC916A4CE for ; Wed, 10 Mar 2004 09:28:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail65.messagelabs.com (mail65.messagelabs.com [216.82.244.83]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9BF6C43D3F for ; Wed, 10 Mar 2004 09:28:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jason.dictos@yosemitetech.com) X-VirusChecked: Checked X-Env-Sender: jason.dictos@yosemitetech.com X-Msg-Ref: server-4.tower-65.messagelabs.com!1078939734!1089105 X-StarScan-Version: 5.1.15; banners=yosemitetech.com,-,- Received: (qmail 3242 invoked from network); 10 Mar 2004 17:28:55 -0000 Received: from mail.tapeware.com (HELO yt-internet.tapeware.com) (4.21.59.10) by server-4.tower-65.messagelabs.com with SMTP; 10 Mar 2004 17:28:55 -0000 Received: by mail.tapeware.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2657.72) id ; Wed, 10 Mar 2004 09:32:04 -0800 Message-ID: From: Jason Dictos To: 'Erik Trulsson' , Jason Dictos Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 09:32:03 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2657.72) Content-Type: text/plain cc: Dan Nelson cc: "''freebsd-questions@freebsd.org' '" Subject: RE: Using int 13 while BSD is running X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 17:28:57 -0000 Point well taken. -Jason -----Original Message----- From: Erik Trulsson [mailto:ertr1013@student.uu.se] Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 9:24 AM To: Jason Dictos Cc: 'Sergey 'DoubleF' Zaharchenko'; Dan Nelson; ''freebsd-questions@freebsd.org' ' Subject: Re: Using int 13 while BSD is running On Wed, Mar 10, 2004 at 08:49:17AM -0800, Jason Dictos wrote: > > > > To Jason: take care not to *write* anything to the disk via int 13h. > > I still don't think I understand why you are using FreeBSD for this > specific purpose. Why if you just >spend time escaping from the OS? > > We actually _like_ protected mode, it allows us to be more flexible > and our code doesn't have to be bastardized with 16 dos compilers ;). > However in dos we have garanteed hard drive support via int13 (Well > almost garanteed, but if an os can boot of the computer, we can access > the disk), and I'm looking for the same sorta garantee in BSD. People > will be using this with raid controllers, scsi hard disks, and ide > drives (Server recovery), so there will be many times when the > hardware running the hd requires specific support, which BSD may or > may not have, point is we dont' want to manage that. > > Make sense? Just because you can boot from the disk does not mean that the BIOS can read the whole disk. As an example I have an old computer running FreeBSD with a 1GB disk. The BIOS in this computer cannot handle disks larger than 512MB (which was a quite common limitation in older BIOSs). I can however boot from this disk since all the files needed for booting reside below the 512MB mark. Once I have booted FreeBSD I can access the whole disk precisely because FreeBSD does *not* use the BIOS, but use its own routines. -- Erik Trulsson ertr1013@student.uu.se ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________