Geos Boot Disks Made Easy
All too many times you have probably heard the old proverb that "there is safety in numbers". Yet for as antiquated as it may be, that wisdom still holds true-today for the CiHQS user's boot disks!
It goes without saying that your Graphic Environment Operating System completely depends on the perfect health of your system disks' boot files. Conventional f ile copiers cannot produce working duplicates of the boot tiles because ev en if the disk's copy protection is broken, the kernel file must reside on the backup disk in the exact position as it did on the original disk. GEOS uses track and sector loading procedures rather than file oriented loading. With the ever-increasing number of software and hardware products lor the Gl.iOS user comes greater demand on the user's boot disks—thus the need for a program to back these disks up. 1 would like lo relate how I had to follow what could he called the "Maverick maze," and how Creative Micro Designs' gebMakeHoot opened the door to effective, time efficient boot disk archiving.
i quickly learned the value of my hoot disks, for within a month after purchasing my original Commodore 64, the GEOS 1 J system disk became magnetized because I foolishly placed them too near a huge supply Of static electricity—namely, llie front of my monitor. The moment that 1 realized what happened (when mysterious
looking characters appeared on a printout instead of the report I needed) I quickly went and purchased GEOS 2.0, and searched diligently for a boot disk backup creator. QuantumLmk offered one such file for I 581 users, but it meant nothing to me as 1 did not yet own a 1581.
I then discovered the Maverick, a complex utility system by Kracker Jax software. Though it boasted of such tools as sector map editors and nybblers, the primary feature 1 desired was the "Geo-booi" from its GEOS tool kit. Initially, my needs were simple: I only wauled GEOS 64 backups for my 1541s. Bui, like any aspiring Commodore user, I soon upgraded my system to a C-128. GEOS 128. two 1581's and a 1750 RAM expander.
The Maverick's limitations and my limited patience began to show once I tried to make backups of the GEOS 128 system disks for my 1581s. The C I28's capability to autoboot disks was not working on the 1581 Maverick boot disk. When testing the new boot disk immediately after creating it, a screen prompt appeared that asked for a disk with DeskTop 2.0 or higher.
Once DeskTop and the input files were added to the new disk, the system would freeze during the boot process. Disk validation didn't work, removing the much needed auto exec files Autoclock and Quikstash didn't work, and the Maverick manual only mentions that iis Track and Sector Editor should lie used to allocate Track I Sector ((after validating. This was extremely confusing for me, and I never did figure out exactly how the Track and Sector Editor was supposed to allocate anything, much less specific tracks and sectors.
After hours of trying, I did manage to figure out how to make the Maverick backup complete the boot process; no files could be copied lo the disk space right after the boot file; that is, DeskTop 128 Page I, Position 2. That was no problem until I copied a file to the disk—because that needed open space would always be the first space copied to due to its location on the DeskTop. (GEOS always copies files to open areas on DeskTop pages in numerical order: first on page iopenings, then page 2. etc.) Unless that copied file was moved to another space, the boot disk would not function properly. Worse yet. the most recent edition of Maverick that I have seen, version 5. makes no mention of CMD'sHD series hard drives orRAMUnk in its user manual,calling into question its compatibility with the latest C-64/128 hardware.
Here is where geoMakeBool made life much easier for me, and can for you! Compatibility with all GEOS supported drives is one outstanding feature of this utility. The established 1541 and 1541-11, 1571 and 15SI drives are a given, but geoMakeBoot surpasses the Maverick utility by its ability to support the CMD RamDrives and Hard Drives. Given its own partition, GEOS can now boot in a fraction of the time without using any floppy disks at all. Another important feature: geoMakeBoot is very tiser-irieudly.
Several brief steps will have your backup boot disk ready to go.
first, power up your system and format the disk that you wish to boot Irom. if you own a hard drive orRAMLink.just choose an existing 1581 partition—no need to format. Sorry, 1764 and 1750 RAM expanders don't count, as they lack a backup power supply.
The second step is to copy the GEOS/ GEOS 128 file from geoMakeBoot to the newly formatted disk or partition, followed by DeskTop/DeskTop 128, Configure 64/ 128 tor RamDrive-compaiible configure) and your input and printer drivers. Don't forget any auto-exec f iles too!
Next, copy geoMakeBoot 64 or 128 to your new boot disk or partition, then place that disk in the drive that you will be looting from.
Finally, open that drive with the new disk in it, and double-click the geoMakeBoot file icon. The screen will clear briefly, and when Desktop reappears, the disk will contain a file called geoBoot/ geoBoot 128. You are now ready to roll.
Much has been said in this article about geoMakeBoot's hard drive and Ram drive compatibility. It should be noted, however, that even the most basic C-64/128 systems can utilize geoMakeBoot. Its system requirements are, simply, GEOS 64/128 version 2.0, a 1541 or 1571 drive, and a mouse or joystick.
Some pointers: You have heard the old adage, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." CM D gives several Ounces of prevention in geoMakeBooi's instructions that will help keep you from having to troubleshoot pounds of problems after the backup process is complete: remember to create your boot disk on the device that you intend to boot from, and have your system configured exactly as it will be when booting GEOS. GeoMakeBoot will, in short, keep your GEOS software up and running well into the next millennia! Until next issue, happy archiving!
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