Dual boot fun and games

I've just been converting an old Win95 box to dual boot with Fedora as the
main OS. I need to keep 'doze running while I try moving legacy
applications to WINE and maybe install Win4Lin if WINE can't hack it. I
hate dual boot systems: this is my first attempt at setting one up.

First move was to install a 40 GB disk for Fedora. 'doze occupies a 6.4 GB
disk (3 partitions) and, because its a mature stable installation, I
didn't want to alter it. First discovery was that neither the BIOS (Award,
1997) nor 'doze could see the new disk. I later discovered that the BIOS
couldn't deal with anything bigger than 8.4 GB, but in the process of
discovering that I moved stuff round on the two IDE cables and 'doze lost
its ability to see the CD R/W drive in the process.

Interesting discovery and one worth remembering: The FC installer was
able to find the big disk and install Fedora on it, but GRUB couldn't boot
from it because it relies on the BIOS for disk access and the BIOS thought
the 40 GB disk wasn't there.

The mother board is a 1998 EpoX which does not have a BIOS upgrade
according to the EpoX site, so I got an 8.4 GB drive off eBay, replaced
the 40 GB monster with it, installed Fedora and both systems now boot just
fine.

This leaves me with two problems: Linux knows it has a 3C509 ethernet card
installed but won't use it: that's tomorrow's problem. Its not the card,
which works perfectly under 'doze.

The other problem is trickier. Do any of you guys have any suggestions for
getting Win 95 to see the CD R/W drive again without reinstalling it?
Thats a nasty job in any case and would make a mess of an otherwise stable
setup. Yeah, I know this isn't a windows ng, but I bet the people on here
have a better idea of how to cobble the CD back into action than most of
the 'doze weenies. I have a copy of "The Mother Of All Windows 95 Books"
so if the answer is hidden in there just tell me RTF MOM95 book and I'll
understand.

--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

.

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