Can't boot win98! Sectors not found Dos error, right?

Mr. PCR
I burn up my free post at aioe
so I at a new IP LOOL

No partitioning & resizing, Just a BOOTER!


I going to plug my USB WinTV in to the Voodoo TV card on that PC and make a
video of the setup of the GAG.
For it is just a Boot manager, it's good for, if you copy a OS from one HDD
C: to Sec. HDD D: The GRAPHICAL BOOT MANAGER will open it as if it's on C:

all partitions can be C:
HDD 2gb Win95, HDD 20gb win98, HDD 30gb WinME, HDD 40gb win2000,
Buy a HDD 130gb, make 5 partitions copy to the OS to the partitions and it
can be the 2000 first for GAG will Boot All as if on C: cool toy Hmm

In message , John John - MVP
writes:
On 11/29/2010 9:26 PM, PCR wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
if it does use an "internal note" (and if it uses
internal notes of absolute disc positions of anything), then any
partition managing software that is going to be able to safely
relocate/resize it is going to have to have internal knowledge of the
OS, and adjust those internal notes.

Yep. I think you've got it. That's what Easeus got wrong for Win98.

When Windows 98 is in a dual boot configuration with NT operating
systems you will run in the same problem if you resize the W9x
partition with just about any partition tool. This was pointed out at
the start of the other discussion thread, the problem is with the
Bootsect.dos file, this file becomes invalid if the DOS/W9x partition
is resized and it will then fail to boot properly.

When arranged in a dual boot configuration with NT operating systems
the W9x boot sector is copied to the Bootsect.dos file then the NT boot
sector is written to the partition. When you boot the computer you
boot using the NT boot sector which then launches the Ntldr boot
loader, if you select to boot Windows 98 ntldr will load the
bootsect.dos file, which is a copy of the W9x boot sector, being that
the file was not updated when the partition was resized it will fail,
you need to rebuild this file to reflect the changes in the partition.
[]
And the FAT table, if that stores either absolute size or any absolute
addresses?

In case I should ever need to resize a '98 partition, what's the easiest
way to rebuild this file, and the FAT if necessary?

(If it _isn't_ a multiboot system, presumably only the FAT would need
rebuilding.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"So, I take it you've ... been with a man before?" "I'm a virgin. I'm just not
very good at it." Topper Harley & Ramada Thompson (Charlie Sheen & Valeria
Golino), in "Hot Shots!" (1991).

Hot-Text wrote:
Mr. PCR
I burn up my free post at aioe
so I at a new IP LOOL

If you say so, but you're properties still say...
Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server

No partitioning & resizing, Just a BOOTER!

OK. That's what it looked like, yeah.

I going to plug my USB WinTV in to the Voodoo TV card on that PC and
make a video of the setup of the GAG.

They showed pictures of it at the site you posted. It looked OK.

For it is just a Boot manager, it's good for, if you copy a OS from
one HDD C: to Sec. HDD D: The GRAPHICAL BOOT MANAGER will open it as
if it's on C:

Very good. BootItNG can do that too.

all partitions can be C:
HDD 2gb Win95, HDD 20gb win98, HDD 30gb WinME, HDD 40gb win2000,
Buy a HDD 130gb, make 5 partitions copy to the OS to the partitions
and it can be the 2000 first for GAG will Boot All as if on C: cool
toy Hmm

Very nice. Glad you found something to keep you busy & to enjoy.


--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

John John - MVP wrote:
On 11/29/2010 9:26 PM, PCR wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In ,
writes:
mm wrote:
[]
I've learned that I'm not the only one
whose computer has been screwed up by this. I don't think most
people know that the contents of a partition would complicate
resizing, especially when a partition is being shortened at the
end, not the beginning where some important files are. So be
warned that Easeus PM won't work with win98.
[]
I suppose there could be some aspects of an OS (98 in this case)
that have absolute addresses on the disc of where some things are,
which could confuse it if suddenly they aren't at those places any
more, but even if they don't ...

I know Defrag will not move files with both the system& hidden
attribute on. The reason for that could be to protect an absolute
location for a file that some 3rd party software has deposited for
copy protection reasons. But I don't know of anything specific. And
I've used the /p switch of Defrag (that moves the unmoveables) to no
ill effect that I've detected.

an OS has to know how big a partition it is on, so it knows where it
can write stuff:

That seems reasonable to me. There may be BIOS& onboard HDD firmware
involved too, but surely the OS needs to know.

98's own defrag, for example, puts a lot of stuff
near the end of the "disc" while it's operating,

Right. I've watched that more than a few times. I believe Defrag has
gotten its information from the FAT table, but I'm not sure where
that table is kept. It depicts all the available clusters& whether
they are currently in use or not, IIRC.

and presumably other
aspects of the OS need to know the size available too (for example
whatever it is that tells you you've run out of disc space when you
try to create, or copy in, a very large file). There are two ways
this information (size of space available) can be obtained: either
the OS keeps a note, somewhere in itself, of how much space is
available, or it goes to look every time it needs to know, either by
testing or by interrogating the partition table.

The partition table can tell the size of the partition, but not how
much of it is used. But there is a note kept of free space somewhere
-- I think in the PBR (Partition Boot Record), an area in front of
the partition. However, the most up-to-date source of space used is
the FAT.

If it uses the first
method (a note of the size within itself), then if someone reduces
the size "without telling it", something will break.

I guess you are right. Easeus had somehow screwed Win98's knowledge
of the partition size after resizing it (possibly not updating the
FAT), but somehow not WinXP's knowledge. MM was able to read files
with XP that were unreadable through Win98, until a Defrag was run.
The Defrag fixed the FAT for Win98 (& possibly even the free space
note in the PBR).

(Thinking about
it, it cold even write outside its own partition and corrupt what is
now in the next partition.) Both methods have their disadvantages:
storing the information locally is prone to changes external to the
OS breaking it, but having to check externally (potentially at every
disc write) cold have a significant performance hit.

That is a conundrum -- speed or precision.

I don't know which method '9x uses to "know" how big a partition
it's operating in;

And it needs to know how much of that is free as well. It's in the
FAT tables.

if it does use an "internal note" (and if it uses
internal notes of absolute disc positions of anything), then any
partition managing software that is going to be able to safely
relocate/resize it is going to have to have internal knowledge of
the OS, and adjust those internal notes.

Yep. I think you've got it. That's what Easeus got wrong for Win98.

When Windows 98 is in a dual boot configuration with NT operating
systems you will run in the same problem if you resize the W9x
partition with just about any partition tool. This was pointed out
at the start of the other discussion thread, the problem is with the
Bootsect.dos file, this file becomes invalid if the DOS/W9x partition
is resized and it will then fail to boot properly.

When arranged in a dual boot configuration with NT operating systems
the W9x boot sector is copied to the Bootsect.dos file then the NT
boot sector is written to the partition. When you boot the computer
you boot using the NT boot sector which then launches the Ntldr boot
loader, if you select to boot Windows 98 ntldr will load the
bootsect.dos file, which is a copy of the W9x boot sector, being that
the file was not updated when the partition was resized it will fail,
you need to rebuild this file to reflect the changes in the partition.

John

What is it about Bootsect.dos that needs adjusting over a resize? Has it
grabbed the free space notation? A quick Google search shows
Bootsect.dos is mainly about IO.sys (to boot Win98), & that SYS will
restore it.


--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

On 11/28/2010 03:45, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

[]
I suppose there could be some aspects of an OS (98 in this case) that
have absolute addresses on the disc of where some things are, which
could confuse it if suddenly they aren't at those places any more, but
even if they don't ...

an OS has to know how big a partition it is on, so it knows where it can
write stuff: 98's own defrag, for example, puts a lot of stuff near the
end of the "disc" while it's operating, and presumably other aspects of
the OS need to know the size available too (for example whatever it is
that tells you you've run out of disc space when you try to create, or
copy in, a very large file). There are two ways this information (size
of space available) can be obtained: either the OS keeps a note,
somewhere in itself, of how much space is available, or it goes to look
every time it needs to know, either by testing or by interrogating the
partition table. If it uses the first method (a note of the size within
itself), then if someone reduces the size "without telling it",
something will break. (Thinking about it, it cold even write outside its
own partition and corrupt what is now in the next partition.) Both
methods have their disadvantages: storing the information locally is
prone to changes external to the OS breaking it, but having to check
externally (potentially at every disc write) cold have a significant
performance hit.

I don't know which method '9x uses to "know" how big a partition it's
operating in; if it does use an "internal note" (and if it uses internal
notes of absolute disc positions of anything), then any partition
managing software that is going to be able to safely relocate/resize it
is going to have to have internal knowledge of the OS, and adjust those
internal notes.

FAT32 keeps a record of the free cluster count and the next free cluster
on disk in the FSInfo sector. FAT and FAT12 don't keep this record on disk.

The partition size and location are kept in the partition table as
absolute values. The volume size (which should match the partition table
size value) is kept in the volume boot sector as a sector count. There's
no location value in the boot sector to say where itself is. Volume boot
sector pointers to the FAT, root dir cluster, and the backup boot sector
are all relative to the start of the partition/volume.

Moving a FAT partition should be easy. Just adjust the values in the
partition table and move the bytes.

If you resize, you have to adjust the FAT size. If FAT"16" then also
take into consideration the relative fixed location of the root dir and
move that. "In the way" file and dir clusters, immediately following
the FATs, have to be moved.,, You need to keep track of the data
clusters that are being moved so you can update the FAT's cluster
pointers. If your partition manager offers, and you accept to change the
cluster size along with everything else, then pray ;-)

It's not impossible of course, but whenever I want to resize a volume I
prefer to create a new empty volume and copy the files over, and/or
clone the volume before the resize. Of course many times you don't have
the luxury of that much space.

On 12/2/2010 02:05, PCR wrote:
John John - MVP wrote:
On 11/29/2010 9:26 PM, PCR wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In ,
writes:
mm wrote:
[]
I've learned that I'm not the only one
whose computer has been screwed up by this. I don't think most
people know that the contents of a partition would complicate
resizing, especially when a partition is being shortened at the
end, not the beginning where some important files are. So be
warned that Easeus PM won't work with win98.
[]
I suppose there could be some aspects of an OS (98 in this case)
that have absolute addresses on the disc of where some things are,
which could confuse it if suddenly they aren't at those places any
more, but even if they don't ...

I know Defrag will not move files with both the system& hidden
attribute on. The reason for that could be to protect an absolute
location for a file that some 3rd party software has deposited for
copy protection reasons. But I don't know of anything specific. And
I've used the /p switch of Defrag (that moves the unmoveables) to no
ill effect that I've detected.

an OS has to know how big a partition it is on, so it knows where it
can write stuff:

That seems reasonable to me. There may be BIOS& onboard HDD firmware
involved too, but surely the OS needs to know.

98's own defrag, for example, puts a lot of stuff
near the end of the "disc" while it's operating,

Right. I've watched that more than a few times. I believe Defrag has
gotten its information from the FAT table, but I'm not sure where
that table is kept. It depicts all the available clusters& whether
they are currently in use or not, IIRC.

and presumably other
aspects of the OS need to know the size available too (for example
whatever it is that tells you you've run out of disc space when you
try to create, or copy in, a very large file). There are two ways
this information (size of space available) can be obtained: either
the OS keeps a note, somewhere in itself, of how much space is
available, or it goes to look every time it needs to know, either by
testing or by interrogating the partition table.

The partition table can tell the size of the partition, but not how
much of it is used. But there is a note kept of free space somewhere
-- I think in the PBR (Partition Boot Record), an area in front of
the partition. However, the most up-to-date source of space used is
the FAT.

If it uses the first
method (a note of the size within itself), then if someone reduces
the size "without telling it", something will break.

I guess you are right. Easeus had somehow screwed Win98's knowledge
of the partition size after resizing it (possibly not updating the
FAT), but somehow not WinXP's knowledge. MM was able to read files
with XP that were unreadable through Win98, until a Defrag was run.
The Defrag fixed the FAT for Win98 (& possibly even the free space
note in the PBR).

(Thinking about
it, it cold even write outside its own partition and corrupt what is
now in the next partition.) Both methods have their disadvantages:
storing the information locally is prone to changes external to the
OS breaking it, but having to check externally (potentially at every
disc write) cold have a significant performance hit.

That is a conundrum -- speed or precision.

I don't know which method '9x uses to "know" how big a partition
it's operating in;

And it needs to know how much of that is free as well. It's in the
FAT tables.

if it does use an "internal note" (and if it uses
internal notes of absolute disc positions of anything), then any
partition managing software that is going to be able to safely
relocate/resize it is going to have to have internal knowledge of
the OS, and adjust those internal notes.

Yep. I think you've got it. That's what Easeus got wrong for Win98.

When Windows 98 is in a dual boot configuration with NT operating
systems you will run in the same problem if you resize the W9x
partition with just about any partition tool. This was pointed out
at the start of the other discussion thread, the problem is with the
Bootsect.dos file, this file becomes invalid if the DOS/W9x partition
is resized and it will then fail to boot properly.

When arranged in a dual boot configuration with NT operating systems
the W9x boot sector is copied to the Bootsect.dos file then the NT
boot sector is written to the partition. When you boot the computer
you boot using the NT boot sector which then launches the Ntldr boot
loader, if you select to boot Windows 98 ntldr will load the
bootsect.dos file, which is a copy of the W9x boot sector, being that
the file was not updated when the partition was resized it will fail,
you need to rebuild this file to reflect the changes in the partition.

John

What is it about Bootsect.dos that needs adjusting over a resize? Has it
grabbed the free space notation? A quick Google search shows
Bootsect.dos is mainly about IO.sys (to boot Win98),& that SYS will
restore it.

Total sectors in the volume.
FAT size.

Those are the biggest factors. The data region's starting location,
where a cluster's "relative" value points to, is computed from the FAT
size,, as it immediately follows the FATs.

PCR wrote:
John John - MVP wrote:
On 11/29/2010 9:26 PM, PCR wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In ,
writes:
mm wrote:
[]
I've learned that I'm not the only one
whose computer has been screwed up by this. I don't think most
people know that the contents of a partition would complicate
resizing, especially when a partition is being shortened at the
end, not the beginning where some important files are. So be
warned that Easeus PM won't work with win98.
[]
I suppose there could be some aspects of an OS (98 in this case)
that have absolute addresses on the disc of where some things are,
which could confuse it if suddenly they aren't at those places any
more, but even if they don't ...

I know Defrag will not move files with both the system& hidden
attribute on. The reason for that could be to protect an absolute
location for a file that some 3rd party software has deposited for
copy protection reasons. But I don't know of anything specific. And
I've used the /p switch of Defrag (that moves the unmoveables) to no
ill effect that I've detected.

an OS has to know how big a partition it is on, so it knows where
it can write stuff:

That seems reasonable to me. There may be BIOS& onboard HDD
firmware involved too, but surely the OS needs to know.

98's own defrag, for example, puts a lot of stuff
near the end of the "disc" while it's operating,

Right. I've watched that more than a few times. I believe Defrag has
gotten its information from the FAT table, but I'm not sure where
that table is kept. It depicts all the available clusters& whether
they are currently in use or not, IIRC.

and presumably other
aspects of the OS need to know the size available too (for example
whatever it is that tells you you've run out of disc space when you
try to create, or copy in, a very large file). There are two ways
this information (size of space available) can be obtained: either
the OS keeps a note, somewhere in itself, of how much space is
available, or it goes to look every time it needs to know, either
by testing or by interrogating the partition table.

The partition table can tell the size of the partition, but not how
much of it is used. But there is a note kept of free space somewhere
-- I think in the PBR (Partition Boot Record), an area in front of
the partition. However, the most up-to-date source of space used is
the FAT.

If it uses the first
method (a note of the size within itself), then if someone reduces
the size "without telling it", something will break.

I guess you are right. Easeus had somehow screwed Win98's knowledge
of the partition size after resizing it (possibly not updating the
FAT), but somehow not WinXP's knowledge. MM was able to read files
with XP that were unreadable through Win98, until a Defrag was run.
The Defrag fixed the FAT for Win98 (& possibly even the free space
note in the PBR).

(Thinking about
it, it cold even write outside its own partition and corrupt what
is now in the next partition.) Both methods have their
disadvantages: storing the information locally is prone to changes
external to the OS breaking it, but having to check externally
(potentially at every disc write) cold have a significant
performance hit.

That is a conundrum -- speed or precision.

I don't know which method '9x uses to "know" how big a partition
it's operating in;

And it needs to know how much of that is free as well. It's in the
FAT tables.

if it does use an "internal note" (and if it uses
internal notes of absolute disc positions of anything), then any
partition managing software that is going to be able to safely
relocate/resize it is going to have to have internal knowledge of
the OS, and adjust those internal notes.

Yep. I think you've got it. That's what Easeus got wrong for Win98.

When Windows 98 is in a dual boot configuration with NT operating
systems you will run in the same problem if you resize the W9x
partition with just about any partition tool. This was pointed out
at the start of the other discussion thread, the problem is with the
Bootsect.dos file, this file becomes invalid if the DOS/W9x partition
is resized and it will then fail to boot properly.

When arranged in a dual boot configuration with NT operating systems
the W9x boot sector is copied to the Bootsect.dos file then the NT
boot sector is written to the partition. When you boot the computer
you boot using the NT boot sector which then launches the Ntldr boot
loader, if you select to boot Windows 98 ntldr will load the
bootsect.dos file, which is a copy of the W9x boot sector, being that
the file was not updated when the partition was resized it will fail,
you need to rebuild this file to reflect the changes in the
partition.

John

What is it about Bootsect.dos that needs adjusting over a resize? Has
it grabbed the free space notation? A quick Google search shows
Bootsect.dos is mainly about IO.sys (to boot Win98), & that SYS will
restore it.

OK. This site...
http://thpc.info/dual/bootsequence.html
Boot Sequence in a Windows Dual-Boot Explained

....appears to have many answers. Everyone puzzling over a dual boot
should read it. It does state Bootsect.dos is "an image of the OS Boot
Sector Code for an OS other than XP/2K/NT", which is a PBR, &...

"A PBR, on a partition's first sector, contains a Parameter Block (or
Table) and some boot code.
The Parameter Block defines the characteristics of the partition (size,
sectors, file system, name, etc)."

So, size & number of sectors is in Bootsect.dos, which likely won't get
updated by resize. If those fields are used instead of information that
can be gleaned from the MBR or from the FAT (which also I guess might
not get updated by a resize) -- that does sound like a problem with
resize in a dual boot system. But I haven't seen anyone run into the
problem with BootItNG, that I can recall.

That site goes on to say...

"NTLDR loads the Bootsect file into memory and uses its OS Boot Sector
Code ... to boot the associated OS"

...., & not that it gets written back to the hard drive. I think it's
mainly looking for IO.sys & not for partition dimensions at this point
in the boot process. Earlier, the FAT must have gotten involved;
therefore, I still tend to think that's what Easeus missed.


--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

Bill Blanton wrote:
On 12/2/2010 02:05, PCR wrote:
John John - MVP wrote:
On 11/29/2010 9:26 PM, PCR wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In ,
writes:
mm wrote:
[]
I've learned that I'm not the only one
whose computer has been screwed up by this. I don't think most
people know that the contents of a partition would complicate
resizing, especially when a partition is being shortened at the
end, not the beginning where some important files are. So be
warned that Easeus PM won't work with win98.
[]
I suppose there could be some aspects of an OS (98 in this case)
that have absolute addresses on the disc of where some things are,
which could confuse it if suddenly they aren't at those places any
more, but even if they don't ...

I know Defrag will not move files with both the system& hidden
attribute on. The reason for that could be to protect an absolute
location for a file that some 3rd party software has deposited for
copy protection reasons. But I don't know of anything specific. And
I've used the /p switch of Defrag (that moves the unmoveables) to
no ill effect that I've detected.

an OS has to know how big a partition it is on, so it knows where
it can write stuff:

That seems reasonable to me. There may be BIOS& onboard HDD
firmware involved too, but surely the OS needs to know.

98's own defrag, for example, puts a lot of stuff
near the end of the "disc" while it's operating,

Right. I've watched that more than a few times. I believe Defrag
has gotten its information from the FAT table, but I'm not sure
where that table is kept. It depicts all the available clusters&
whether they are currently in use or not, IIRC.

and presumably other
aspects of the OS need to know the size available too (for example
whatever it is that tells you you've run out of disc space when
you try to create, or copy in, a very large file). There are two
ways this information (size of space available) can be obtained:
either the OS keeps a note, somewhere in itself, of how much
space is available, or it goes to look every time it needs to
know, either by testing or by interrogating the partition table.

The partition table can tell the size of the partition, but not how
much of it is used. But there is a note kept of free space
somewhere -- I think in the PBR (Partition Boot Record), an area
in front of the partition. However, the most up-to-date source of
space used is the FAT.

If it uses the first
method (a note of the size within itself), then if someone reduces
the size "without telling it", something will break.

I guess you are right. Easeus had somehow screwed Win98's knowledge
of the partition size after resizing it (possibly not updating the
FAT), but somehow not WinXP's knowledge. MM was able to read files
with XP that were unreadable through Win98, until a Defrag was run.
The Defrag fixed the FAT for Win98 (& possibly even the free
space note in the PBR).

(Thinking about
it, it cold even write outside its own partition and corrupt what
is now in the next partition.) Both methods have their
disadvantages: storing the information locally is prone to
changes external to the OS breaking it, but having to check
externally (potentially at every disc write) cold have a
significant performance hit.

That is a conundrum -- speed or precision.

I don't know which method '9x uses to "know" how big a partition
it's operating in;

And it needs to know how much of that is free as well. It's in the
FAT tables.

if it does use an "internal note" (and if it uses
internal notes of absolute disc positions of anything), then any
partition managing software that is going to be able to safely
relocate/resize it is going to have to have internal knowledge of
the OS, and adjust those internal notes.

Yep. I think you've got it. That's what Easeus got wrong for Win98.

When Windows 98 is in a dual boot configuration with NT operating
systems you will run in the same problem if you resize the W9x
partition with just about any partition tool. This was pointed out
at the start of the other discussion thread, the problem is with the
Bootsect.dos file, this file becomes invalid if the DOS/W9x
partition is resized and it will then fail to boot properly.

When arranged in a dual boot configuration with NT operating systems
the W9x boot sector is copied to the Bootsect.dos file then the NT
boot sector is written to the partition. When you boot the computer
you boot using the NT boot sector which then launches the Ntldr boot
loader, if you select to boot Windows 98 ntldr will load the
bootsect.dos file, which is a copy of the W9x boot sector, being
that the file was not updated when the partition was resized it
will fail, you need to rebuild this file to reflect the changes in
the partition.

John

What is it about Bootsect.dos that needs adjusting over a resize?
Has it grabbed the free space notation? A quick Google search shows
Bootsect.dos is mainly about IO.sys (to boot Win98),& that SYS will
restore it.

Total sectors in the volume.
FAT size.

Those are the biggest factors. The data region's starting location,
where a cluster's "relative" value points to, is computed from the FAT
size,, as it immediately follows the FATs.

I've since discovered that, reading...

http://thpc.info/dual/bootsequence.html
Boot Sequence in a Windows Dual-Boot Explained

...., as I've posted elsewhere in this thread. But, it doesn't sound like
that data is used in the dual boot process. Hasn't the partition already
booted by then, & Bootsect.dos been loaded (to memory - not written to
the HDD) only to start IO.sys (which is even in the same partition)? I
think it's more likely the FAT hasn't been updated by Easeus, which is
why DOS couldn't read the files & Win98 wouldn't boot. But I still don't
know why XP could read files on the resized partition even before it
Defragged it.


--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
Should things get worse after this,
PCR

"Bill Blanton" wrote in message
ng.com...
On 11/28/2010 03:45, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

[]
I suppose there could be some aspects of an OS (98 in this case) that
have absolute addresses on the disc of where some things are, which
could confuse it if suddenly they aren't at those places any more, but
even if they don't ...

an OS has to know how big a partition it is on, so it knows where it can
write stuff: 98's own defrag, for example, puts a lot of stuff near the
end of the "disc" while it's operating, and presumably other aspects of
the OS need to know the size available too (for example whatever it is
that tells you you've run out of disc space when you try to create, or
copy in, a very large file). There are two ways this information (size
of space available) can be obtained: either the OS keeps a note,
somewhere in itself, of how much space is available, or it goes to look
every time it needs to know, either by testing or by interrogating the
partition table. If it uses the first method (a note of the size within
itself), then if someone reduces the size "without telling it",
something will break. (Thinking about it, it cold even write outside its
own partition and corrupt what is now in the next partition.) Both
methods have their disadvantages: storing the information locally is
prone to changes external to the OS breaking it, but having to check
externally (potentially at every disc write) cold have a significant
performance hit.

I don't know which method '9x uses to "know" how big a partition it's
operating in; if it does use an "internal note" (and if it uses internal
notes of absolute disc positions of anything), then any partition
managing software that is going to be able to safely relocate/resize it
is going to have to have internal knowledge of the OS, and adjust those
internal notes.

FAT32 keeps a record of the free cluster count and the next free cluster
on disk in the FSInfo sector. FAT and FAT12 don't keep this record on
disk.

The partition size and location are kept in the partition table as
absolute values. The volume size (which should match the partition table
size value) is kept in the volume boot sector as a sector count. There's
no location value in the boot sector to say where itself is. Volume boot
sector pointers to the FAT, root dir cluster, and the backup boot sector
are all relative to the start of the partition/volume.

Moving a FAT partition should be easy. Just adjust the values in the
partition table and move the bytes.

If you resize, you have to adjust the FAT size. If FAT"16" then also take
into consideration the relative fixed location of the root dir and move
that. "In the way" file and dir clusters, immediately following the FATs,
have to be moved.,, You need to keep track of the data clusters that are
being moved so you can update the FAT's cluster pointers. If your
partition manager offers, and you accept to change the cluster size along
with everything else, then pray ;-)

It's not impossible of course, but whenever I want to resize a volume I
prefer to create a new empty volume and copy the files over, and/or clone
the volume before the resize. Of course many times you don't have the
luxury of that much space.

But create a new empty volume and clone the old volume to the new empty
volume is the Right Way to do it Always for Win98!

On 12/3/2010 00:43, PCR wrote:
PCR wrote:
John John - MVP wrote:


When Windows 98 is in a dual boot configuration with NT operating
systems you will run in the same problem if you resize the W9x
partition with just about any partition tool. This was pointed out
at the start of the other discussion thread, the problem is with the
Bootsect.dos file, this file becomes invalid if the DOS/W9x partition
is resized and it will then fail to boot properly.

When arranged in a dual boot configuration with NT operating systems
the W9x boot sector is copied to the Bootsect.dos file then the NT
boot sector is written to the partition. When you boot the computer
you boot using the NT boot sector which then launches the Ntldr boot
loader, if you select to boot Windows 98 ntldr will load the
bootsect.dos file, which is a copy of the W9x boot sector, being that
the file was not updated when the partition was resized it will fail,
you need to rebuild this file to reflect the changes in the
partition.


What is it about Bootsect.dos that needs adjusting over a resize? Has
it grabbed the free space notation? A quick Google search shows
Bootsect.dos is mainly about IO.sys (to boot Win98),& that SYS will
restore it.


OK. This site...
http://thpc.info/dual/bootsequence.html
Boot Sequence in a Windows Dual-Boot Explained

...appears to have many answers. Everyone puzzling over a dual boot
should read it. It does state Bootsect.dos is "an image of the OS Boot
Sector Code for an OS other than XP/2K/NT", which is a PBR,&...

"A PBR, on a partition's first sector, contains a Parameter Block (or
Table) and some boot code.
The Parameter Block defines the characteristics of the partition (size,
sectors, file system, name, etc)."

So, size& number of sectors is in Bootsect.dos, which likely won't get
updated by resize. If those fields are used instead of information that
can be gleaned from the MBR or from the FAT (which also I guess might
not get updated by a resize) -- that does sound like a problem with
resize in a dual boot system. But I haven't seen anyone run into the
problem with BootItNG, that I can recall.

BootitNG has basic file edit capability inside its partition manager, so
it would have capability to update bootsect.dos. (if that's what it
does.. don't know)



That site goes on to say...

"NTLDR loads the Bootsect file into memory and uses its OS Boot Sector
Code ... to boot the associated OS"

...,& not that it gets written back to the hard drive. I think it's
mainly looking for IO.sys& not for partition dimensions at this point
in the boot process. Earlier, the FAT must have gotten involved;
therefore, I still tend to think that's what Easeus missed.

The NT code in the volume boot sector will be loaded and those
"dimensions" used to ultimately find bootsect.dos. When bootsect.dos
loads it's pretty much a boot sector reset. The BPB inside bootsect.dos
is now used. There's no provision for the 9x code (located inside
bootsect.dos) to take into consideration any parameters that NT may have
set up.

The file is just poked into memory and jumped into just as if it was in
the boot sector. NT is finished at that point.