Suggestion for a new Grub command

[Philip Pawley]

Could I beg a file copying command for Grub?

It would be very useful when booting several instances of Windows 95/98.

I have 2 instances of Windows 95 and 3 instances of Windows 98 (as well as 2 
instances of RedHat Linux) on my hard drive.

According to dos, my Windows installations are on drives E, F, G, H and I. In 
fact, they are on (hd0,4), (hd0,6), (hd0,7),(hd0,8),(hd0,9). 
(hd0,1) and (hd0,2) are normally hidden. I use them - along with (hd0,0) - to 
boot to 3 of my Windows installations.
(hd0,3) is the extended partition. 
(hd0,6) is the /boot partition for my 2 RedHat installations. These have / on 
(hd0,10) and (hd0,11).
(hd0,12) is Linux <swap>.
(hd0,13) and (hd0,14) are FAT32 partitions for data. 

Here is what I want to do:-

I propose to include - on (hd0,0) - 5 separate directories each including the 
five files needed to boot a specific instance of Windows (command.com, io.sys, 
msdos.sys, config.sys and autoexec.bat).

Then, if I could use a command like:

cp (hd0,0)/<bootfiles>/<Windows 95 on drive E>/* (hd0,0)

the menu item for each of my 5 Windows installations could look similar to 
this:-

title Windows 95 on E (Internet Explorer 3)
        cp (hd0,0)/<bootfiles>/<Windows 95 on drive E>/* (hd0,0)
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        chainloader +1

No more need for "hide" or even for "makeactive"!  Better still, I could boot 
all 5 Windows installations this way instead of having to use boot floppies for 
2 of them because of running out of primary partitions. Also, I would have two 
primary partitions available for something else if needed. 

Would this work? (I know it *does* work if the file copying is done *before* 
rebooting).

Thanks,


Philip Pawley