ms-sys(1): Microsoft boot block

NAME

ms-sys - write Microsoft boot block

SYNOPSIS

ms-sys [options] [device]

DESCRIPTION

ms-sys is for writing Microsoft compatible boot records.

OPTIONS

A summary of options is included below.

-1, --fat12: Write a FAT12 floppy boot record to device.
-2, --fat32nt: Write a FAT32 partition NT boot record to device.
-3, --fat32: Write a FAT32 partition DOS (Win9x) boot record to device.
-4, --fat32free: Write a FAT32 partition FreeDOS boot record to device.
-5, --fat16free: Write a FAT16 partition FreeDOS boot record to device.
-6, --fat16: Write a FAT16 partition DOS (Win9x) boot record to device.
-l, --wipelabel: Reset partition disk label in boot record.
-p, --partition: Write partition info (hidden sectors, heads and drive id) to boot record. This might be needed on some partitions depending on which program was used to create the file system.
-m, --mbr: Write a Windows 2000/XP/2003 master boot record to device. Does not change Windows Disk Signature (bytes 01b8-01bd). This MBR will boot certain partition types beyond cylinder 1024 using LBA addressing.
-9, --mbr95b: Write a Windows 95B/98/98SE/ME master boot record to device. Does not change Windows Disk Signature (bytes 01b8-01bd) or boot drive and time (bytes 00da-00df). This MBR will boot FAT-LBA partition types 0c and 0e beyond cylinder 1024 using LBA addressing.
-d, --mbrdos: Write a DOS/Windows NT master boot record to device. Does not change Windows Disk Signature (bytes 01b8-01bd). This MBR will not boot beyond cylinder 1024 as it does not support LBA addressing.
-s, --mbrsyslinux: Write a public domain syslinux master boot record to device. Does not change Windows Disk Signature (bytes 01b8-01bd). This MBR will boot any partition types beyond cylinder 1024 using LBA addressing.
-z, --mbrzero: Write an empty (zeroed, non-bootable) master boot record to device. Zeroes all bytes except the partition map and signature (bytes 01be-01ff). Similar to the empty DOS partition table that fdisk creates.
-f, --force: Force writing of boot record.
-h, --help: Show summary of options.
-v, --version: Show program version.
-w, --write: Write automatically selected boot record to device. If ms-sys is started without any options a simple diagnosis will be done on the given device.

EXAMPLES

Please note that Windows ME is not useful for making standalone bootable floppies. However, Win9x and DOS works fine with the first two examples. Creating a 1.68 MB bootable floppy

This example assumes that you have your windows installation mounted at /dosc and also have mtools and fdformat installed.: fdformat /dev/fd0u1680 mformat a: ms-sys -w /dev/fd0 mcopy /dosc/io.sys a: mcopy /dosc/msdos.sys a: mcopy /dosc/command.com a: Creating a bootable 2.8 MB floppy image to use with an el-torito bootable CD dd if=/dev/zero of=floppy288.img bs=1024 count=2880 /sbin/mkdosfs floppy288.img ms-sys -1 -f floppy288.img su mount -o loop floppy288.img /mnt cp msdos.sys /mnt/ cp io.sys /mnt/ cp command.com /mnt/ (it might also be a good idea to add a config.sys and autoexec.bat with CDROM support) umount /mnt exit cp floppy288.img cd-files/boot.img mkisofs -b boot.img -c boot.cat -o cdimage.iso cd-files (burn the file cdimage.iso to a CD with cdrecord or another program) restoring a backup of Win9x or Win ME to a fresh hard disk Step 1, use GNU parted to create your FAT32 partition and file system: parted (then create partition and file system) Step 2, write the MBR: ms-sys -w /dev/hda Step 3, write the FAT32 partition boot record: ms-sys -w /dev/hda1 Step 4, mount your new filesystem: mount /dev/hda1 /mnt Step 5, read your backup cd /mnt; tar -xzvf /path/to/my_windows_backup_file.tgz

ENVIRONMENT

The variables LANG and LC_ALL have the usual meaning, however there are not many translations available.

BUGS

There have been reports about unbootable FAT32 partitions created with "mformat -F c:". The problem has also been reported on partitions formatted with mkdosfs and mkfs.vfat. One workaround is to use gnu parted to create the partition instead. Since version 1.1.3 ms-sys has the switch -p which is supposed to fix this problem. Unfortunately, when using ms-sys with Linux kernel 2.6 nor the -p switch or gnu parted might work. The only reliable workaround known so far is to use ms-sys with Linux kernel 2.4.

AUTHOR

This manual page was originally written by G[:u]rkan Seng[:u]n and since edited by Henrik Carlqvist. The program ms-sys is mostly written by Henrik Carlqvist, the file CONTRIBUTORS in the source archive contains a complete list of contributors.