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From: apratt@atari.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: booting off a hard disk.
Message-ID: <517@atari.UUcp>
Date: Fri, 16-Jan-87 14:43:24 EST
Article-I.D.: atari.517
Posted: Fri Jan 16 14:43:24 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Jan-87 16:06:48 EST
References: <942@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 20

in article <942@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu>, rstpierr@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu 
(Pete St.Pierre) says:

> I was told that even with a hard disk set up... The ST still needs a a disk
> in the floppy drive to boot.  Is this really the case? It seems to be a bit 
> of a waste.

It is not necessary, but it saves time: The ST checks for a boot sector
on your floppy first, then on the hard disk.  If there's a floppy there,
it reads the boot sector, notices that it's not executable, and goes
right to the hard disk.  Without a floppy, it tries (and retries...)
to read with no luck.  This adds about 10 seconds (maybe less) to the
boot time.

My boot disk is labelled "BOOT DISK," is write-protected, and is utterly blank.

/----------------------------------------------\
| Opinions expressed above do not necessarily  |  -- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
| reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else. |     ...lll-lcc!atari!apratt
\----------------------------------------------/