After downloading my QNXRTP.ISO and dreading setting up
another PC (I have 3 systems running QNX 4.25, Win98, and Linux all
taking up Case/Monitor space in my office) I came up with the following
hardware boot manager. I used it to turn my Linux system into a dual
boot for QNXRTP/Linux. So, here is my little project to create a
hardware boot manager. If you don’t mind soldering and hardware stuff
(and possibly frying something if you screw up)…give this a try:
Get 3 ide hard drives
Set 2 on the primary IDE as Master or Single depending on the manufacturer
of the HD (This is the tricky part…keep reading)
Set 1 on the secondary IDE
Set BIOS to AutoDetect hard drives
Buy a rotary, 2 position, double pole switch
Buy a few internal HD power cables and Y splitter types
Buy some rolls of wire the same guage as the power cables
Solder the switch so it supplies the +5V and +12V suppilies to one of the
2 power connectors at a time. Route the ground straight through to both
plugs
Use the 2 plugs out of the switch to plug into the two HDs on the primary
and power the secondary HD normally.
Mount the switch someplace convenient.
Your Done!!!
Now, with a simple turn of a nob you can boot off a TOTALLY isolated OS (no
more Winsucks
detecting you dual booting and trashing your files). With this arrangement
you can setup QNXRTP
on one of the Primary HDs as the boot and mount the Secondary as a Fat16.
This Fat16 could
be mounted and serve as the backup for the files on the boot HD or any file
which you might want
to transfer between OSs. Right now I am manually unplugging and plugging the
power connector
to whichever HD I want to boot from until my ordered parts come in…
One minute I’m in Linux…power down…switch…power up…QNX
RTP…Bingo…No muss…no fuss…
Neither OS knows about the other. I save on having multiple PCs taking up
space and IDE HDs are
real cheap and easy to use. With the right IDE cables you could even have
more then 2 HDs plugged
into the same controller. Imagine a tower case with 8 HDs and a 8-position
switch. Linux, Unix, QNX4.25,
QNXRTP, BeOS, Win9x, etc…all clueless to the others existance…There are
numerous other
possibilities but you get the idea. I’ve even had some of the guys at work
asking me to build them one
when I get mine done…maybe a new career move???..another dot.com is
born…
Good Luck…
~ Lee R. Copp
~ Project Engineer (EE/ME)
~ Michigan Scientific Corp.
~ 321 East Huron St.
~ Milford, MI 48381
~ 248-685-3939 x109 (V), 248-684-5406 (Fx)
~ http://www.michiganscientific.com
~ mailto:<Lee.R.Copp@MichiganScientific.com>
I used removeable hard disc caddies at one time.
They are about £8 over in the UK.
You can then literally just plug in and play on the disc
you want.
Lee R. Copp wrote in message <8sf3v7$189$1@inn.qnx.com>…
After downloading my QNXRTP.ISO and dreading setting up
another PC (I have 3 systems running QNX 4.25, Win98, and Linux all
taking up Case/Monitor space in my office) I came up with the following
hardware boot manager. I used it to turn my Linux system into a dual
boot for QNXRTP/Linux. So, here is my little project to create a
hardware boot manager. If you don’t mind soldering and hardware stuff
(and possibly frying something if you screw up)…give this a try:
Get 3 ide hard drives
Set 2 on the primary IDE as Master or Single depending on the manufacturer
of the HD (This is the tricky part…keep reading)
Set 1 on the secondary IDE
Set BIOS to AutoDetect hard drives
Buy a rotary, 2 position, double pole switch
Buy a few internal HD power cables and Y splitter types
Buy some rolls of wire the same guage as the power cables
Solder the switch so it supplies the +5V and +12V suppilies to one of the
2 power connectors at a time. Route the ground straight through to both
plugs
Use the 2 plugs out of the switch to plug into the two HDs on the primary
and power the secondary HD normally.
Mount the switch someplace convenient.
Your Done!!!
Now, with a simple turn of a nob you can boot off a TOTALLY isolated OS (no
more Winsucks
detecting you dual booting and trashing your files). With this arrangement
you can setup QNXRTP
on one of the Primary HDs as the boot and mount the Secondary as a Fat16.
This Fat16 could
be mounted and serve as the backup for the files on the boot HD or any file
which you might want
to transfer between OSs. Right now I am manually unplugging and plugging
the
power connector
to whichever HD I want to boot from until my ordered parts come in…>
One minute I’m in Linux…power down…switch…power up…QNX
RTP…Bingo…No muss…no fuss…
Neither OS knows about the other. I save on having multiple PCs taking up
space and IDE HDs are
real cheap and easy to use. With the right IDE cables you could even have
more then 2 HDs plugged
into the same controller. Imagine a tower case with 8 HDs and a 8-position
switch. Linux, Unix, QNX4.25,
QNXRTP, BeOS, Win9x, etc…all clueless to the others existance…There are
numerous other
possibilities but you get the idea. I’ve even had some of the guys at work
asking me to build them one
when I get mine done…maybe a new career move???..another dot.com is
born…>
Good Luck…
~ Lee R. Copp
~ Project Engineer (EE/ME)
~ Michigan Scientific Corp.
~ 321 East Huron St.
~ Milford, MI 48381
~ 248-685-3939 x109 (V), 248-684-5406 (Fx)
~ > http://www.michiganscientific.com
~ mailto:> <Lee.R.Copp@MichiganScientific.com>
\
I don’t know if vmware supports QNX4 or Neutrino, but assuming it does work,
wouldn’t it be easier than building this? An added benefit is you wouldn’t
need to do a power off/on cycle to use another OS–you could run all these
simultaneously.
Brent
Lee R. Copp <Lee.R.Copp@MichiganScientific.com> wrote in message
news:8sf3v7$189$1@inn.qnx.com…
After downloading my QNXRTP.ISO and dreading setting up
another PC (I have 3 systems running QNX 4.25, Win98, and Linux all
taking up Case/Monitor space in my office) I came up with the following
hardware boot manager. I used it to turn my Linux system into a dual
boot for QNXRTP/Linux. So, here is my little project to create a
hardware boot manager. If you don’t mind soldering and hardware stuff
(and possibly frying something if you screw up)…give this a try:
Get 3 ide hard drives
Set 2 on the primary IDE as Master or Single depending on the manufacturer
of the HD (This is the tricky part…keep reading)
Set 1 on the secondary IDE
Set BIOS to AutoDetect hard drives
Buy a rotary, 2 position, double pole switch
Buy a few internal HD power cables and Y splitter types
Buy some rolls of wire the same guage as the power cables
Solder the switch so it supplies the +5V and +12V suppilies to one of the
2 power connectors at a time. Route the ground straight through to both
plugs
Use the 2 plugs out of the switch to plug into the two HDs on the primary
and power the secondary HD normally.
Mount the switch someplace convenient.
Your Done!!!
Now, with a simple turn of a nob you can boot off a TOTALLY isolated OS
(no
more Winsucks
detecting you dual booting and trashing your files). With this
arrangement
you can setup QNXRTP
on one of the Primary HDs as the boot and mount the Secondary as a Fat16.
This Fat16 could
be mounted and serve as the backup for the files on the boot HD or any
file
which you might want
to transfer between OSs. Right now I am manually unplugging and plugging
the
power connector
to whichever HD I want to boot from until my ordered parts come in…>
One minute I’m in Linux…power down…switch…power up…QNX
RTP…Bingo…No muss…no fuss…
Neither OS knows about the other. I save on having multiple PCs taking up
space and IDE HDs are
real cheap and easy to use. With the right IDE cables you could even have
more then 2 HDs plugged
into the same controller. Imagine a tower case with 8 HDs and a
8-position
switch. Linux, Unix, QNX4.25,
QNXRTP, BeOS, Win9x, etc…all clueless to the others existance…There
are
numerous other
possibilities but you get the idea. I’ve even had some of the guys at
work
asking me to build them one
when I get mine done…maybe a new career move???..another dot.com is
born…>
Good Luck…
~ Lee R. Copp
~ Project Engineer (EE/ME)
~ Michigan Scientific Corp.
~ 321 East Huron St.
~ Milford, MI 48381
~ 248-685-3939 x109 (V), 248-684-5406 (Fx)
~ > http://www.michiganscientific.com
~ mailto:> <Lee.R.Copp@MichiganScientific.com>
\
I don’t know if vmware supports QNX4 or Neutrino, but assuming it does
work,
wouldn’t it be easier than building this? An added benefit is you
wouldn’t
need to do a power off/on cycle to use another OS–you could run all these
simultaneously.
I tried an older version of vmware with QNX4.25 and it didn’t work. I’ve
heard
their newer version is working with QNXRTP but it still has a few problems.
I
would like to run Linux and have Win98 and QNX4.25 and QNXRTP as virtual
machines for development but I don’t think it would be able to handle all
situations.
I’m sure gaming or hardware specific types of development would require a
‘native’
OS boot and this is what the hardware boot manager could provide.
Thanks…
~ Lee R. Copp
~ Project Engineer (EE/ME)
~ Michigan Scientific Corp.
~ 321 East Huron St.
~ Milford, MI 48381
~ 248-685-3939 x109 (V), 248-684-5406 (Fx)
~ http://www.michiganscientific.com
~ mailto:<Lee.R.Copp@MichiganScientific.com>
In my computer, all I have to do is press 'esc key 3 times during start-up
and a dialog will pop up to select the drive to boot off of. By default, I
boot off my secondary drive which is qnx rtp. When I want to boot windows,
all I do is press 'esc 3 times and select my primary hard-disk from pop up
list, and it boots windows. This way, I have no need for a boot manager…
I guess this must be a function of my bios…don’t know if it works on all
pc computers…
rishi
Lee R. Copp <Lee.R.Copp@MichiganScientific.com> wrote in message
news:8skc4f$3t4$1@inn.qnx.com…
I don’t know if vmware supports QNX4 or Neutrino, but assuming it does
work,
wouldn’t it be easier than building this? An added benefit is you
wouldn’t
need to do a power off/on cycle to use another OS–you could run all
these
simultaneously.
I tried an older version of vmware with QNX4.25 and it didn’t work. I’ve
heard
their newer version is working with QNXRTP but it still has a few
problems.
I
would like to run Linux and have Win98 and QNX4.25 and QNXRTP as virtual
machines for development but I don’t think it would be able to handle all
situations.
I’m sure gaming or hardware specific types of development would require a
‘native’
OS boot and this is what the hardware boot manager could provide.
Thanks…
~ Lee R. Copp
~ Project Engineer (EE/ME)
~ Michigan Scientific Corp.
~ 321 East Huron St.
~ Milford, MI 48381
~ 248-685-3939 x109 (V), 248-684-5406 (Fx)
~ > http://www.michiganscientific.com
~ mailto:> <Lee.R.Copp@MichiganScientific.com>
\