SCO XENIX-386 disk problems and a gripe

Karl Denninger karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM
Thu Nov 9 07:20:34 AEST 1989


In article <35861 at cc.utah.edu> ORCUTT at cc.utah.edu writes:
>I just bought SCO XENIX/386 and installed in on a PC featuring an old
>Intel motherboard (16 MHz, 2 wait states, '387 with prot. mode fix).
>The machine has a 1.2 Mbyte floppy and an 80 MByte (ST4096) hard drive
>partitioned 28 Mbytes for DOS and 52 Mbytes for XENIX.  The boot partition
>is the XENIX partition.
>The installation went fine and the XENIX runs great, for the most part.
>However, I am having the following disk problems:
>
>1) If I turn the machine on and type "dos" at the colon, the machine
>does not boot DOS, but rather goes off to oblivion.  The tech. support
>people said that it did this because I partitioned the disk with
>Disk Master instead of with the DOS fdisk.  However, the XENIX fdisk
>correctly lists the partition sizes and types.  Can anyone confirm
>this?  I don't want to waste the 4 hours or more reformatting my disk,
>repartitioning it, and reinstalling DOS and XENIX if nothing is
>going to improve.

This is correct.  You should do the following to boot DOS from the Xenix
boot prompt:
	1) Format (low level) the disk
	2) Use MSDOS FDISK to make a DOS partition of whatever size
	3) Format /s that partition; verify that it boots

	4) Boot Xenix from the distribution disk
	5) In the fdisk program (which makes the partitions) DO NOT 
	   tell Xenix to use the entire disk.  Define your Xenix partition
	   and make it active.  Note that the DOS partition shows up as
	   partition 4 here, where it was "1" under DOS Fdisk.  This is
	   normal.
	6) Complete installation of Xenix.

	The disk should boot either operating system as requested.

>2) How do I get XENIX to boot from the floppy, so I can make DOS
>the boot partition?

That can be done, but I've not tried it.  I understand you can do it with a
custom "boot" line in /etc/default/boot.  Look there.

>3) Whenever XENIX writes to a floppy, it ruins the floppy.  If XENIX
>formats a floppy, the floppy is unusable to either XENIX or DOS unless
>it is reformatted by DOS.  
......
>in behavior.  Am I doing something wrong or does XENIX not like my
>floppy controller?

Sounds like a problem with the controller or drive.

>4) Lastly, I am unhappy with the method that SCO uses to provide tech.
>support to its customers.  

(rest of complaint deleted)

Buy from a reseller that supports the product, and then you can deal with
them directly.  Resellers generally get priority with SCO, which is to be
expected.  If you didn't buy direct, then you should deal with the company
you purchased the product from.  If you >did< buy direct then you have a
much more valid complaint.  Where did you get your Xenix from?

We certainly don't give people the run-around like this!

.....

>A typical 5-minute support
>call costs me nearly an hour of my time.  The price of SCO XENIX should
>include a free speakerphone with a muzak suppressor...

This hasn't been our experience.  We call, get a trouble id, and when the
person returns our call (given, a day or two later at times) there is a tech
on the line who is helpful and solves the problem.  Most of the time :-)

Then again, we don't call much -- there aren't many problems.

--
Karl Denninger (karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910]
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.		"Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"



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