Hi, On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 5:13 PM, E. Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote: > > Possible explanation: The FreeDOS USB boot thing has a harddisk- > style bootable disk image and the BIOS of your computer has some > compatibility issue with the drive-renumbering caused by booting > from USB and/or from using a "harddisk" boot image.
FreeDOS has at least three "fdisk" programs, so maybe FD fdisk [sic] can't do it, but maybe try the others (e.g. xfdisk or spfdisk): * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/xfdisk/ * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/spfdisk/ Actually, what version of FD fdisk are you using? IIRC, it wasn't quite finalized, so there's some confusion between 1.2 and 1.3 series. So maybe try whatever other version you're not already using: * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/fdisk/ Or would maybe Ranish Partition Manager work?? * http://www.ranish.com/part/ * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/ranish/ > A possible solution would be to use a FreeDOS boot FLOPPY or floppy image. I did already suggest using floppy to him, but he didn't seem to acknowledge or want it. Dunno. > As you are able to use the MS DOS one, you will be able to use a > FreeDOS one as well :-) As far as I can tell, you do not need a > large install, just the "usual DOS stuff", so you can use some > floppy distro like Ruffidea or Brezel or similar. RUFFIDEA is too old, similarly BARE_DOS (although I still have them available). I don't know offhand where Brezel is. And most other such floppy images are all old, too (e.g. ODIN, Balder, Joris-8086, etc). But .... > Maybe the other freedos-user fans can suggest a nice image :-) This is a recent effort by me and meant to be a minimal (but easy and convenient) starting point. By default, it comes as a 1.44 MB 3.5" floppy .img (roughly only half filled) with a few essentials (FD fdisk, format, sys). http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/metados/ The idea is that you can modify it under modern VM (e.g. VBox or QEMU) before writing it to physical floppy, if needed. GNU Mtools (under Linux or similar) would also allow that, among various other methods (e.g. mount loopback or whatever). >> I found an "MS-DOS 7.1" boot floppy image and *this one* had no >> problems booting the S30 with a USB floppy drive, wiping the DOM and >> creating a fresh partition with FDISK, then rebooting and using >> format c: /s >> NOW it's booted to a DOS prompt from the DOM. Win7 still has the ability to "make system floppy", which is a slimmed-down, emergency, minimal MS-DOS image. RUFUS can use this, if found. However, allegedly Win10 doesn't have that anymore. IIRC, in recent years MSDN used to still sell full MS-DOS 6.x, but I'm not sure anymore. (And there are still other DOSes still available online, too, e.g. DR-DOS or ROM DOS.) >> So I'll try FreeDOS again...... >> Nope. Same as before. Screen full of No Fixed disks present, followed >> by a prompt to repartition D:, but it cannot touch it. >> Does the Lite USB install make a log file to diagnose why it's not >> working? I suggest you try a different FDISK program. For that matter, you could also maybe use GParted or cfdisk or whatever on Linux (or BSD or ...) to do it. Especially since you imply that Linux works fully on that type of machine. You may also need this: * https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/sys/sys-freedos-linux/ Or "maybe" this will help?? * http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/ Or why don't you install FreeDOS under VM to raw disk image, and then dd it to the physical hard drive while under Linux. Then it should boot correctly, right? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
