OSDev.org

Hello i've been working on a OS and i need a way to get it on the HDD and work as a normal system, i was wondering if anybody can tell me how to get a Host OS to work to install my OS to the HDD or if there is a tutorial on how to make a Host OS....

THX

If you're talking about what I think you are talking about:
If you are using Windows, you're screwed...
I know one person managed to set up VMWare running linux so that linux could access window's hd through vmware.. but that is dangerous stuff. I would just use a standard bootloader for now.

--Michael

Since you said "the HDD", I'm going to assume you only have one available. You will need to reformat it with one extra unallocated partition for your OS (hopefully the current OS has not used up all 4 of the default partitions). Then you will need a "dual-booting" MBR -- that can boot either of the OSes on your system, with a method for selecting which to boot. This means that you will need to overwrite the current MBR on LBA 0 of your HDD. And after that you will need to be VERY careful that your OS never writes anything to any LBA outside its own partition, or you will be corrupting your other OS. If you need one, I can give you my current dual booting MBR, that I wrote. Transferring data (like your OS kernel) from one partition on a disk to another is extremely difficult, and how you do it depends on exactly what the other OS is, that you are using.