Hi, On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 1:01 AM, Andrew Robins <arob...@fastmail.fm> wrote: > > I was the gent Dennis McC mentions having Puppy Linux running in an old > machine in the thread "Install basic Puppy on a computer with 16 Mb > RAM".
Sad that nobody cares for old machines anymore. There are way more of them than new ones. But I guess "new" is "cheap enough" and (sometimes) works where old doesn't. > Now very recently I *finally* acquired a 44-pin IDE adapter for a 16GB > SD-card, to replace the original 1358MB PATA. This was done for greater > performance, cooler running etc. Avoided the CF-card route, thanks also > to earlier discussions in this forum. Now all my searches suggested that > the latest BIOS for that Toshiba would handle the FreeDOS 1.1 > installation from CD, and even despite scaling back to a 2GB SD card, > and trying a similar install on a 196MB RAM Portege 3480CT - I still ran > into problems (Very difficult getting around the PCMCIA CD-drive issue > in the latter case). So your BIOS won't boot from CD? You could maybe (?) try Smart Boot Manager (via floppy), which claims to subvert that need. > Even formatting the hard drive via the early instal > steps on the CD failed to There were some unusual, but mostly cosmetic > error messages returned that didn't appear with the installation of > FreeDOS 1.0. I made notes - misplaced during the Christmas buzz - but > can dig them out again if anyone wants. DOS is not difficult to install. But multi-boot can (over)complicate everything. If it worked in FD 1.0, it should also work in FD 1.1. If not, that's probably an accidental regression (which is sadly too easy with so few testers). > After some trial-and-error I realized that I was missing a bootloader > all along. I installed GRUB4DOS and away I go now - but for the install > of a single OS, Grub etc shouldn't be normally required? No, it's not needed. > Is there a > bootloader stage in the latest install process that has been omitted > somehow? Doubtful. SYS.COM is used to copy the boot sector (and usually kernel and shell files: KERNEL.SYS, COMMAND.COM). My main machine "was" using BOOTMGR (from BTTR) fine (with three OSes) installed to the MBR (with appropriate partition tables), but the fan and hard drive just died a few days ago (yuck), so now .... :-P > I wasn't able to install FreeDOS 1.1 from the CD, but I cloned > the original PATA drive to the 2GB SD with no further issue. So I have > just a few requests for the installation process as a FreeDOS user: > > 1) clearer instructions on how to do the "copy CD onto HD" route for > installation. There's info buried in the ISO, but I only found it once, It's something like just normal file copying, concatenating back into one piece, and then using SHSUCDHD (possibly with SHCDX33F or whatever loaded). Sorry, never tried personally. Some suggested grabbing via network (if existing packet driver works) might be easier for upgrades if booting from CD is inconvenient or if copying lots of stuff via floppies is too tedious. > 2) some installation workarounds for the "if you have a PCMCIA > cd-rom...", and Yuck, heh. Dunno, most of us have never messed with PCMCIA. Or at least I never did. > 3) improved format /system HD / bootloader process. a). fdisk (create FAT, active, bootable) b). reboot c). (quick?) format FAT d). sys a: c: (copies kernel, shell, and boot sector) e). manually install other stuff (unzip, xcopy, etc.) > That's about all the feedback I have for the time being. Apologies if > some of the above issues have been addressed elsewhere and I've skimmed > over it, Hope this helps (or someone chimes in better). Sorry if it's not good enough. Sometimes "good ol' InnerTubez" tech support just doesn't cut it. Try searching some FD-related FAQs or wikis. (I don't know which is up, up-to-date, or available, so I can't say for sure. It's too many little pieces to keep up with honestly, sorry.) Just don't "give up". There's bound to be (some) answers out there. > Thanks, and > Happy New Year You too. o<|:-P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Master Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL, ASP.NET, C# 2012, HTML5, CSS, MVC, Windows 8 Apps, JavaScript and much more. Keep your skills current with LearnDevNow - 3,200 step-by-step video tutorials by Microsoft MVPs and experts. SALE $99.99 this month only -- learn more at: http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnmore_122412 _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
