Very Computer

First I appologize for running this question through, as I'm sure it has
been run through before countless times, but your help is appreciated
greatly.

I have FreeBSD 2.2.6 on cd-roms.   I have a windows 95 based laptop,
that came with one 4 gig hd partitioned into two 2 gig hd's.  not a
problem, it runs the FAT16 filesystem the way it is.  the fdisk option
says I can change to support a larger hd (my 4 gig as a single drive)
but it will change to the FAT32 system.  I have no problems changing
this to emiliminate the windows partition.  This will allow me to use
the FIPS utility to repartition (in a linux style) my hd. installing
linux and keeping my windows 95 setup...is this possible... any warnings
or help or assistance anyone can offer me in this endevour would be
greatly appreciated...help me upgrade my microslop machine by adding a
secure OS. Thank you
John Barnthouse aka Bit Maestro

If your machine is already setup to use the drive in LBA mode, you could
simply delete your second dos partition and install FreeBSD into that
space.  The drive must be in LBA mode so that logically the entire drive
resides below the 1024th cylinder.  This makes any partition on the
drive bootable.  The usual warnings apply here: MAKE A BACKUP.  The last
time I used fips, it destroyed my drive.  The time before that, it
worked fine.  I now use Partition Magic when I fiddle with dos/fat32
partitions.

If your drive is not in LBA mode, and your BIOS cannot boot above the
1024th cylinder, you will have to do significant partition shuffling and
you should lay them out carefully, accounting for expected growth.

- K.C.