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From: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Hard Disk Auto Boot Bypass
Message-ID: <1626@atari.UUCP>
Date: 26 Jul 89 16:35:44 GMT
References: <711@lzaz.ATT.COM>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 22

hcj@lzaz.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) writes:

>For 2 years I have auto booted off a hard disk.
>I have used the Bypass program by Small in Start magazine to save me
>when the /auto or .acc program went bad and the system wouldnt boot.

Why did you need that?  I'm not quite sure of all the oldest versions,
but most Atari hard disk drivers let you avoid booting from the hard disk
by holding down the "Alternate" key.  You can't do this too soon -- you
have to do it after the keyboard's initialized.  The procedure is to
turn on your machine and wait for the floppy disk's access light to come
on (the first time).  Then hit the Alternate key and don't let go until
you see the Desktop.  The hard disk shouldn't have booted.

This is a feature of the hard disk driver, not the ROMs, so a hard disk
made bootable by something other than HINSTALL may not have this
feature. Also, like I said, the very oldest bootable hard disk driver
might not have it.

============================================
Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt