Edit 98SE Boot Menu

[kadani1]

I have a conventional 98SE install on C:-drive on an 80GB HDD. C:-drive is 5GB, and there is a 15GB D:-drive, with the single optical drive, a DVD-burner, as E:-drive. The rest of the disk is occupied by a Linux install.

The PC has a Gigagyte GA-K8VM800M (rev. 2.0) mainboard, Athlon 64 AMD 3000 2GHz, and 1GB DDR400 RAM - 98SE is set to read 384MB of this.

The 98SE install has ZoneAlarm, Avast, Firefox, and connection to Cable Internet via on-board ethernet.

This setup, with OpenOffice2, Roxio 6.1, Photoshop, etc, is working well.

What I need to do is to Edit the contents of the Boot Menu. I'm aware that you can add controls for it in MSDOS.SYS, but not of a way to edit or re-set the existing options on it.  Perhaps like the NT BOOT.INI file or a Linux LILO or GRUB file. My intention is to do a Customised install on a purpose-made PC, but to try it out on this PC first.

That is - where is - or is there - an editable file that has the contents list for the Boot Menu?

After a lot of Googling, Forum searching, so on, I'm starting to think this is a bit of a mystery.....

I do hope somebody knows about this - or at least can tell me that the default entries in Boot Menu are "made in" and so can't be edited, anyway...

Thanks in advance to any who can enlighten me!

Kadani.

[Dusty]

What I need to do is to Edit the contents of the Boot Menu. I'm aware that you can add controls for it in MSDOS.SYS, but not of a way to edit or re-set the existing options on it. Perhaps like the NT BOOT.INI file

Am not sure what you mean, options in MSDOS.SYS can be set/reset in any plain text editor.

Here are the permitted options and the associated values.  As in BOOT.INI the boot directory etc can be set/reset as can the values in the varous options.

Please advise.

Good luck

[kadani1]

Dusty - Thanks for your attention so quickly.

What I meant was that the default Boot Menu has a half-dozen or so options on it, 1. Normal Startup, 2. Logged, and so on. This list isn't in msdos.sys - but it's displayed, so it must be in a file somewhere.

It's that file, location, or whatever else creates that default Menu, that I'm trying to find.

I just hope that it isn't in a "closed code" file...

Thanks again.

Kadani.

[Spoiler]

Win 98 has no boot menu. Are you looking at a 3rd party app? Or have you installed XP on the same machine?

Can you tell us more about your machine and hows it setup?

[patio]

If this machine has Linux on it then you need either a LILO or GRUB boot editor...

[kadani1]

Spoiler - 98SE does have a Boot Menu - with 6-7 items on it, starting with 1 = Normal start, thru to (usually) 6 = Command Prompt Only. The way to see said Menu without holding a key down at startup is to edit the Windows-side msdos.sys to read, LOGO=0 and BOOTMENU=1.

Patio - Yes, the PC has GRUB on it for PCLinuxOS. On the GRUB Menu, select Windows, and it boots to 98SE.  And the Boot Menu does then show.

The Setup is as described in the header Post -

"I have a conventional 98SE install on C:-drive on an 80GB HDD. C:-drive is 5GB, and there is a 15GB D:-drive, with the single optical drive, a DVD-burner, as E:-drive. The rest of the disk is occupied by a Linux install...

The PC has a Gigagyte GA-K8VM800M (rev. 2.0) mainboard, Athlon 64 AMD 3000 2GHz, and 1GB DDR400 RAM - 98SE is set to read 384MB of this.

The 98SE install has ZoneAlarm, Avast, Firefox, and connection to Cable Internet via on-board ethernet.

This setup, with OpenOffice2, Roxio 6.1, Photoshop, etc, is working well..."

> What else would you like to know about the PC setup?

The Windows O/S is 98SE, there is no XP on it. I have to have "Windows something" as I'm in Australia and the ISP doesn't support Linux. So 98SE is the least hassle to dual-boot.

I've been adjusting the 98SE Boot Menu - making it visible on startup, changing the Boot Menu Delay from 30 seconds to 3 seconds, so on, for nearly 10 years - so it does exist - and it should be editable.

I was a Windows Technician - CompTIA A+ qualified - for 11 years before I retired. So I do know the "usual things" of Windows, back to Windows-2.x - 286 in 1987 - and forward to XP-Pro-SP3.

Few people here have, or will tolerate, Vista, so Microsoft has extended XP-Pro (not Home) until end 2009 here. Probably into 2010 - or dealers will have stocks from end of 2009 - to last until the makeover of Vista, Windows-7, arrives. A recycled failure will most likely be another failure.

About 1 in 8 PCs here is still on 98SE. It runs faster than XPs on the many old and low-end PCs here.

Linux isn't yet taking much of the market here - but Vista has given it a big boost. Microsoft Australia is telling suburban dealers here that they'll be able to "bridge" the Vista era to Windows-7 with extended time on XP-Pro.  If that's all they can offer, they're giving this market to Linux.

Thanks, Kadani.