DOS ain't dead

DOS specifications ("standards") (Developers)

posted by awik, 21.11.2020, 18:58

>
> I am not sure "GPT is hard, this new thing is easy to hack up" is a good
> enough reason to come up with another incompatible specification.

Personally, I want a choice in the matter, so that I can use what suits me best. Just because something already exists, does not necessarily mean it is good.

> We are talking about the MBR here --- if an fdisk program happens to
> misinterpret the contents of the MBR, it can easily corrupt the hard
> disk and make all its data pretty much inaccessible.

I know. I don't recall how it happened, but I lost my partition table at least once. Fortunately I had the data on paper so I used Linux fdisk to type it in manually.

In any case, that is just another reason for having backups.

> There is a reason why the GPT scheme involves having a "protective MBR".
> Similarly, whatever new scheme you implement in the end must work --- or at
> least fail --- gracefully with fdisk's that do not understand your new
> scheme, but might understand the old format and/or GPT.

An optional backup of the MBR could be part of the spec. Even a "protective" (ie. dummy) MBR could be included. However, care must be taken to avoid needless complexity, because that is one of the main goals for creating a GPT alternative.

-Albert.

Complete thread:

• DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 18.11.2020, 16:57 (Developers)
  • DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 18.11.2020, 18:48
  • DOS specifications ("standards") - RayeR, 18.11.2020, 20:07
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 19.11.2020, 13:32
  • DOS specifications ("standards") - glennmcc, 18.11.2020, 20:22
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 19.11.2020, 13:44
  • DOS specifications ("standards") - Zyzzle, 19.11.2020, 02:23
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 19.11.2020, 14:02
      • DOS specifications ("standards") - RayeR, 19.11.2020, 19:11
  • DOS specifications ("standards") - Laaca, 19.11.2020, 11:27
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 19.11.2020, 15:03
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - RayeR, 20.11.2020, 02:04
  • DOS specifications ("standards") - tkchia, 19.11.2020, 14:12
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 19.11.2020, 15:11
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - RayeR, 19.11.2020, 19:06
  • DOS specifications ("standards") - ecm, 20.11.2020, 16:08
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 21.11.2020, 16:43
      • DOS specifications ("standards") - tkchia, 21.11.2020, 17:37
        • DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 21.11.2020, 18:58
          • DOS specifications ("standards") - tom, 22.11.2020, 14:58
      • DOS specifications ("standards") - marcov, 22.11.2020, 22:35
        • DOS specifications ("standards") - RayeR, 23.11.2020, 05:49
      • DOS specifications ("standards") - 33-bit LBA support - ecm, 23.11.2020, 10:01
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - ecm, 25.12.2020, 21:27
  • Hosting/Sharing - rr, 23.11.2020, 21:19
  • DOS specifications ("standards") - Ro2003, 13.01.2024, 09:06
    • DOS specifications ("standards") - awik, 16.01.2024, 11:28
      • DOS specifications ("standards") - jadoxa, 17.01.2024, 02:15
        • DOS specifications ("standards") - Rugxulo, 17.01.2024, 03:40