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japreja



Joined: 02 Mar 2004
Posts: 14
Location: NY, FL, MT
japreja 02 Mar 2004, 07:03
Can I rewrite the bios of my old 486 to only support MeOS?

In my current bios(on the 486) I can low level format my Hard drive and under linux I can chang the type of partition table. Is it also possable to Make a custom partition table unique to MeOS in the future?
I have like 5 old 486 computers in my junkroom and want to put them to use. I also have access to like 50 more in a friends junkroom. I would like to play arround with MeOS so if someone writes a bios and is affraid of destroying there computer, send it to me I can try it on one of my 486s and hope it dont blow up, heh.
Post 02 Mar 2004, 07:03
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Tolle



Joined: 21 Jan 2004
Posts: 71
Tolle 02 Mar 2004, 16:30
Why would you want to rewrite the BIOS?
Most bioses are perfectly capable of finding and loading the MBR (master boot record)

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Inside the MBR is a region of data known as the 'partition table'
The table holds info about the partitions on the drive. Wich basically are just regions on the disk. (partition 0 runs from A to B, partition 1 from B to C,....) The partition table also holds a number to represent what kind of FS/OS is located there (for instance NTFS uses 0x07)
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Mike Hibbet has some fat32 bootcode on his website, and you can find bootmf32.asm in the "more demo's" section on menuetos.org
Post 02 Mar 2004, 16:30
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japreja



Joined: 02 Mar 2004
Posts: 14
Location: NY, FL, MT
japreja 03 Mar 2004, 01:49
If the BIOS could be rewritten then it could be made specificly for MeOS and there would probably be room enough in the flash to put the kernal image so people could boot directly from BIOS. Only the core kernel code would need to be rewriten and stored there, the rest of the kernel could be made into modules to be plugged in and removed at will, similar to *nuxs! that would also make it possable to make modules to support different OSes through the use of modules and not kernel code.
Pluss it would prevent problems with MBR viruses, you cant write to the bios unless you have answered yes to the "overwrite bios?" question.
I just put the offer out here to test it on my 486 so if anyone out there that wanted to try it, could without risking a new or frequently used computer.
Post 03 Mar 2004, 01:49
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spideros1



Joined: 17 Jan 2004
Posts: 77
Location: Poland
spideros1 03 Mar 2004, 06:14
It's almost impossible to write new BIOS for motherboard, unless you have designed it Wink so you'd know all the mb's internals. You'd also have to write floppy and hard didsk drivers, search for VESA BIOS and run it, and a lot more things to do. There's no "universal" BIOS, especially on the old motherboards.
Post 03 Mar 2004, 06:14
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