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README.TXT  v1.03
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This program allows you to:

	- Select Active Partition at the boot time
	- Detect presence of Boot Viruses in memory
	- Boot from the second Hard Disk or A: drive

Virus Detection is implemented by checking 26 interrupt vectors 03 .. 1Ch
(Including: Timer, Keyboard, Video, Reboot, and Disk I/O ) to be >= C000h.
If they have different values it is a high probability of a virus invasion
and program warns user.

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 What is Partition Table ?
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   Partition Table is the first sector on HardDisk, which contains locations
and sizes of all partitions on the disk. It also has a flag indicating which
partition is active (from which one computer should boot).

   In addition, Partition Table (also called MBR: Master Boot Record), has a
small piece of code, whose task is to load and run Boot Sector of the active
partition.

   There a few reasons why you may wish to have several bootable partitions.
Maybe you have different Operating Systems, such as DOS and UNIX. Or, maybe,
you want to play with a new version of WINDOWS 95, keeping intact an old DOS
partition with WINDOWS 3.11, so you still can work.

   If you have more than one bootable partition,  in order to change active
partition you will need to run a program, called FDISK, every time you want
to do so. Another choice is to get a Partition Boot Manager, just like this
one, which allows to select active partition "on the fly", at the boot time.



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 About this Partition Boot Manager
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  Message                Description

"Booting from: 1"  }     Press SPACE to select a new active partition.
"Booting from: A"  }}    Press ESC or any other key to skip waiting.
"Booting from: D"  }     All keys but ESC will be left in buffer. (F5,F8,...)

"Select (TAB,1-4): "     Use TAB to boot from A or next HD, 1-4 for a new prt.
"Writing changes..."     Program is saving last selection back to MBR.

"I/O Error!"         Error reading disk or empty partition was selected.
"Bad Boot Sector!"   Boot record is lost or damaged. It has a bad MAGIC number.

"Boot Virus!"          Press ENTER to continue or, better, SHUT DOWN computer,
                     boot from a CLEAN floppy disk, and run ANTIVIRUS program.
                     Don't use TAB to boot from A - virus is active in MEMORY!


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 Using program from Command Line 
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  Just put the commands that you would use in interactive mode on
the command line. Here are some examples:

	PART		- Without arguments you will get an interactive menu 
	PART  1		- Activate partition 1
	PART  N 3	- Activate partition 3 on the second Hard Drive
	PART  V		- Install PBM option V
	PART  N U	- Uninstall PBM from the second Hard Drive
	PART  A B C	- Print a few help messages
	PART  K pt.dat	- Save partition table to the file "pt.dat"

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 Notes on Usage
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   Warning:	Not all OS are going to boot from second hard drive.
		For example DOS will halt if you attempt to boot it.

   Warning:	Never Boot from the EXTENDED DOS partition.

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 TIPS:
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      - You can change boot sequence to "C:,A:", thus computer will boot
        faster and it will be harder to catch a boot VIRUS, since number
        of accidental booting from floppy will drop down drasticly.

      - You still can boot from "A:" if you install this PBM and hit TAB
        at startup.

      - You can decrease DOS boot up time if you add line "SWITCHES=/F" to
        the CONFIG.SYS file, and then you can press  ESC,  F5 or F8 at PBM
        waiting prompt.

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This program is a FreeWare.
You can freely distibute it.

Send any suggestion, questions or comments to:

 ranish@intercom.com
 http://intercom.com/~ranish


