First post, by Malik
- Rank
- l33t
Just wanted to share my recent experience with this neat little utility.
I have a personal favourite Socket 5 motherboard with SiS 5501/02/03 based chipsets on which my trusty Pentium 133 runs. (Personal favourite - not because of any special features but because of nostalgic purposes - my first Pentium motherboard with good memories of running some of my most favourite games on it.)
I've been baffled and put-off with the Bios' Boot Select option since this is a relatively unknown motherboard with an older Award Modular Bios v4.50. The only boot options I have are A,C & C,A.
Though I have the Original manual which came with the system, other than the name VE-501 Pentium Motherboard, I had no idea who the maker was. After searching in the net using the bios codes posted at the POST screen, I came to know that it's made by Unico. Though the POST screen shows that the bios is modular, the mobo does not have any flash bios chip on it.
Then came this Smart Boot Manager to the rescue.
A very useful utility I've got this year!
Once installed, the Smart Boot Manager takes over right after the bios post screen. The main screen is as seen above. One can even set the default boot option with a timer setting, just like the multiconfig blocks in the config.sys of Ms-Dos 6.
There are other options too like naming the boot options, set active and hiding partitions and so on. I'll let the pictures do the talking 😁 :
I have uploaded the file here.
Mini usage guide:
After extracting, you'll get two files - sbminst.exe and cwsdpmi.exe, which is a support file. The main is sbminst.exe.
Typing sbminst without parameters will bring up the help.
The help screen is quite self-explanatory.
In short, to install to a floppy disk, make a bootable floppy (format /s option). Then type sbminst -d 0 (zero). 0 is the first physical drive, so for Drive B, it will be sbminst -d 1.
Floppy A is 0, Floppy B is 1,...etc.
Installing to a floppy disk will void other read/write functions on this disk. You'll get a general failure error when accessing this disk.
You can only use it as a Smart Boot Manager disk.
You can also install this to the hard drive.The first hard drive starts from 128. To install to the first HD, enter sbminst -d 128.
The screens above are from my hard drive boot. After bios, it reads the Smart Boot Manager information written on the MBR of the hard drive, before allowing the OS to take over. By this method you can select any installed drive, including the cd drive.
Caution: This program writes to the Master Boot Record (MBR). Any wrong inputs or errors without using the backup option can be dangerous to yer health! No, seriously! 😁
Credits:
Thanks goes to dvwjr. I came to know about this program first through his post.
(Thanks, dvwjr!!!)
