__/ [ The Ghost In The Machine ] on Tuesday 22 August 2006 21:00 \__
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote
> on Tue, 22 Aug 2006 19:44:53 +0100
> <1470916.YfkX7BIhB7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> __/ [ miroco ] on Tuesday 22 August 2006 18:15 \__
>>
>>> On Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:39:41 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>>
>>>> | Vista will continue to
>>>> | wipe your master boot record on install. And so begins "The case
>>>> | against installing Windows Vista (volume 658, 943)".
>>>
>>> Why are they such assholes?
>>
>> It's the mantra. They will make it look like it's an
>> innocent mistake. Just as they have been doing with
>> Web standards for so many years.
>
> Actually, it's a little more complicated than that; until
> recently (say, the Win95 timeframe, perhaps?) the PC simply
> didn't have multiple OS capability -- mostly because nobody
> really bothered until Linux came along. (I've not heard
> of dual-boot MS-DOS/4DOS units, for example.)
>
> So Microsoft happily replaced the boot record on every install.
> So what? Until Linux comes along and...uh oh.
>
> Now we're asking them to change their methods to respect
> other operating systems. A tad unfair perhaps, but not
> unreasonable given other circumstances (e.g., a highly
> competitive "flat-space" software environment). :-)
The twelelve tenets included a clause of being nice to the competition rather
than blindly stomp on it.
> Not the happiest of situations.
>
>> Erasing the MBR is the same as erasing a file (purging a
>> pointer to it), The average computer user will never be
>> able to recover it.
>
> Worse than that. The MBR can only be read and altered by
> specialized tools. At least with files one can copy them
> from a backup source -- *if* one bothered to back them up.
I have just come across the following (not even searched for it).
http://chris.tripunkt.de/?p=10
Take back your MBR
Indeed, it's not trivial. no amateur computer user will be able to cope with
this.
> Fortunately, one of those tools is Linux itself, along with
> 'dd'. To Linux, the MBR is simply the first two sectors
> on the boot drive -- which for most is /dev/hda. (A word
> of warning: know what you're doing if you're root and want
> to fiddle. :-) Or have a Livedisc or boot floppy handy.)
You'd have to have an affinity for some strange hobbies if you go as far as
doing this. *smile*
Roy
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