BIBM-noob quesiton

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molecule
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2012 2:17 pm

BIBM-noob quesiton

Post by molecule »

BIBM by itself goes in a conventional active primary partition of hd0, which can be a few meg formatted as FAT/FAT32.
... I want to limit my primaries to 4 and use std MBR until I'm comfortable with BIBM as rock solid partition manager
(at the moment I'm habituated to gparted from parted magic CD or partition magic 8.01 from windows ...)

-- edit can I make the active primary partition 80gig instead of 8meg, use it to store files along with BIBM?

BIBM uses a 2nd partiton for its wallpapers and sounds (and ??) called ERMBM (per pg.65 pdf manual). It must be fat/fat32 (to be seen by BIBM) ... probably just a few meg as well.

ERMBM can a volume inside an extended partiton (again using conventional MBR) ... manual doesn't say (or I didn't see anyway)

can I put BIBM sound and background files in active primary on hd0 along with BIBM?

whether ERMBM is a primary partiton or is volume inside the extended partition, can BIBM see ERMBM if ERMBM is hidden (after being populated with files)? I want to keep the number of volume letters in windows down. or I'd rather go ahead and make the EMBBM drive 80gig FAT32 and use it rather than 8meg.

when I boot into selected OS (say windows XP) from BIBM, does the selected OS see the BIBM partition? does it see the ERMBM partition/volume if it has to be standalone?

is the selected OS (say windows XP) running inside a wrapper provided by BIBM? ... otherwise, when I exit windows, how does BIBM rewrite the MBR so the BIBM is active primary again?

thanks
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: BIBM-noob quesiton

Post by Brian K »

molecule,

Most of your preconceived ideas are off the mark. BIBM is not the Active partition. I suggest you run the defaults until you understand the concept.
molecule
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2012 2:17 pm

Re: BIBM-noob quesiton

Post by molecule »

my preconceived ideas are mostly from old age, fear, uncertainty, confusion and frustration ... but not with terabyte btw ... hard to admit it but I'm just now graduating from 98se to XP ... it's hard to lose the comparative stability and predictability of 98se, and the control control control that I have under 98se with a system built on dos ... but that's all an aside ... back in the days of dos 3.1 a hdd cost 5 meg (that's meg!) hdd cost $800 (or was it 1 meg?) and it could have a max of 4 partitions, of which only 1 could be bootable

if BIOS doesn't see io.sys for BIBM (whatever it's called) in active primary on hd0 on initial boot, then how does BIBM get loaded to take control of the MBR? The manual states that BIBM needs a primary partition ... leaving 3 for the user, if user wants to limit partitions to standard 4 per hdd.

It's a preconceived guess on my part, but after an OS is selected in BIBM, BIBM substitues a temporary MBR, and then orders a shutdown and reboot ... on reboot the new MBR directs the bios to the proper entry point ... for development work, would the OS then be able to install drivers and programs, and reboot back to itself, or would it reboot back to BIBM, and then reboot to OS after selection?

still confused and trying to figure it out? thanks for your help.
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: BIBM-noob quesiton

Post by Brian K »

You need some hands on experience. Do you have a test computer to install BIBM?

Alternately you can use the BIBM CD for most procedures. BIBM doesn't have to be installed if you are only using one OS.
Eric
Posts: 224
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2011 6:53 pm
Location: France

Re: BIBM-noob quesiton

Post by Eric »

Why would you need a standard MBR to run WinXP? Aren't you confusing the MBR and the partition table?
Panagiotis
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 8:28 pm

Re: BIBM-noob quesiton

Post by Panagiotis »

molecule wrote:
>....
> still confused and trying to figure it out? thanks for your help.

Understanding the boot sequence can be very confusing and difficult to explain in a few lines.
For start read the following
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/principles.shtml
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting
to grasp the general idea of how multiboot managers work, end then we can help you with specific questions on "bootit br".

edit: after rereading your first post about your question on installing BIBM in a large 80gb partition, the answer is yes, as long the partition is primary and formatted as fat32
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: BIBM-noob quesiton

Post by Bob Coleman »

molecule,

BIBM doesn't consume two partitions. While the wallpapers, sound files, etc. are in the EMBRM (not ERMBM) partition, that's the same partition that BIBM is installed in.
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