[Coco] Booting OS9 from Drive 1

[Chester Patterson]

Many many moons ago I used to have the same problem. The easiest solution
is to format a 3.5 disk so it is exactly the same format as the 5.25 disk
(if Single sided then single sided, if 35 track or 40 track that too) then
backup d1 to d0. Then you can boot from d0 easy as pie.

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Gault [mailto:robert.gault at worldnet.att.net] 
Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 8:41 PM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [Coco] Booting OS9 from Drive 1

Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Sunday 04 October 2009, Derek wrote:
>> I am having a problem being able to boot OS-9 in the following 
>> configuration. I have an FD-502 Drive housing with a 3.5" and a 5.25"
>> drive. My 3.5" drive is set as drive 0 and my 5.25" is set as drive 
>> 1. I have some old 5.25" OS-9 based disks that need to boot using the 
>> DOS command. I switch to drive1 and then type DOS. It starts to load 
>> OS-9, goes to the Loading OS-9 Screen but will then automatically 
>> switch to drive 0 trying to access the boot data on drive 0 and not 
>> boot from the 5.25" disk in drive 1. I have tried using the drive1 
>> command to set it as the boot drive but no luck.
>>
>> Is there an easy way to make it so I can boot off drive 1 and uses 
>> these old 5.25" OS-9 disks without having to make a backup on to a 
>> 3.5" drive for each disk I want to boot?
>>
> You could patch the boot module on track 34 & change the /d0 to /d1, 
> but don't forget to set bit 8, so the hex 31 will be a hex b1.
> 
>> Thank you
>>
>>
>>
>> ** Mistrust Authority. Promote Decentralization **
>>

Derek,

The above is just part of what you need to do. You will also probably need
to change the /DD descriptor to point to drive #1 and change any scripts ,
such as startup, that might point to /D0.

I believe the current version of NitrOS-9 has some scripts that make it
simple to boot from a drive other than 0. You just need to edit the
scripts and use them to create a new boot disk. The scripts will select
the correct Boot module, /DD, and any other changes that seem appropriate.