Re: [Freedos-user] Without DVD-ROM, USB working... install it from the HD?

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

Coming back to this, this might not be exactly the solution to this
one specific problem, but I still feel like I should mention it
somewhere!


On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 5:18 PM, Jerome Shidel  wrote:
>
> On Mar 25, 2017, at 5:00 PM, Aleksei Ivan  wrote:
>
> My USB ports are NOT working too. I have only to work with a installation
> partition on this netbook.
>
>
> Well, it is always tricky to install an OS to a computer with a single
> drive, no USB, no CD, no Floppy. It is very difficult to boot anything other
> than the installed OS.
>
> So, your only viable option is to remove the drive from the Netbook and plug
> it into another PC.

FYI, GNU's GRUB 2.02 was just released. I don't know the full
changelog, but Phoronix says "better support for FreeDOS" (whatever
that means)! An earlier article says "improved FreeDOS direct loading
support"!

* http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
* https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GRUB2_Quick_Start

A quick search for "grub freedos" found some interesting links:

* https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Flashing_BIOS_from_Linux
* https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/BIOS_Update
* https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Bootable_DOS_USB_stick

...

"The mkpkg action will create the floppy image ... so that the user
can boot to the image from the hard drive to flash the BIOS, without
needing a floppy drive."

"The install action will create the biosdisk image, copy the image
file to /boot, and then update the bootloader with an entry for the
image. Then all the user has to do is boot the system and select the
image to flash the BIOS; this will load the biosdisk image directly
from the hard drive and flash the BIOS."

It also has a section called "Images that are too large for a floppy"
that grabs a 10 MB image from http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/ . That
uses "mount -oloop" and says "The image can now be copied to a USB
stick for booting, or booted as a memdisk".

It also mentions genisoimage for adding 1.44 MB floppy image to .iso for CD/DVD.

Or use the floppy image (as initrd) with GRUB via SysLinux's memdisk
(as kernel).

If needed, there's also geteltorito.pl that will extract .img from
.iso, which can then be copied to "USB thumbdrive".

...

The Gentoo wiki mentions fdboot.img and sys-freedos-linux. They create
a 20 MB image (via dd) and mkfs.fat, sys-freedos.pl on it, mount -o
loop, then copy files, etc.

"Booting the FreeDOS image from GRUB directly"

"To boot FreeDOS without any external media use the memdisk tool from
syslinux to allow grub (or another bootloader) to boot the FreeDOS
image directly." (Basically copy memdisk and freedos.img to /boot and
adjust grub.conf accordingly.)

...

The Bootable DOS USB (Gentoo) page is also interesting:

They mention using dd, cfdisk, ms-sys, mkfs.fat. They also use DOSEMU
(sys and xcopy) and test the raw USB device itself in QEMU.

...

So, in short, it's still overly complicated, but there are ways of doing it.

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Re: [Freedos-user] Using USB Mass Storage on FreeDOS

[Ercan Ersoy]

> If your BIOS or UEFI recognizes USB mass storage, then FreeDOS should 
> recognize
> it if it is in place at boot time.
>
> I don't think FreeDOS can recognize a USB stick inserted after FreeDOS boots
> and is active, but I could be wrong in the case of USBDOS.
>
> FAT16 is very inefficient regarding cluster size, so on a USB stick, even if
> only 1 GB, you do better with FAT32.
>
> With FAT16, if file system is between 1 GB and 2 GB, cluster size is 32 KB,
> meaning this is the amount of space taken by a very small file.
>
> One way you can test diskspace use is to see (with DIR) how much space you
> have, and then run something like
> ECHO ababcdcdefefgg > JUNK1.TXT
> and then run DIR and see how much diskspace you have after that.
>
> Tom
Before boot, I insert my mass storage to VirtualBox USB inferance. But, 
FreeDOS doesn't mount the mass storage with USBDOS. USBUHCI.COM doesn't 
recognize the mass storage.

I tried USBASPI.SYS on FreeDOS again. But, USBASPI.SYS doesn't work.

Best regards,
Ercan
//
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Re: [Freedos-user] Using USB Mass Storage on FreeDOS

[Thomas Mueller]

> Thanks for replying.

> After this, I won't use USBASPI on FreeDOS.

> How can I use a USB mass storage that is formatted FAT16 or FAT32 on
> FreeDOS with USBDOS?

> Best regards,
> Ercan

If your BIOS or UEFI recognizes USB mass storage, then FreeDOS should recognize 
it if it is in place at boot time.

I don't think FreeDOS can recognize a USB stick inserted after FreeDOS boots 
and is active, but I could be wrong in the case of USBDOS.

FAT16 is very inefficient regarding cluster size, so on a USB stick, even if 
only 1 GB, you do better with FAT32.

With FAT16, if file system is between 1 GB and 2 GB, cluster size is 32 KB, 
meaning this is the amount of space taken by a very small file.

One way you can test diskspace use is to see (with DIR) how much space you 
have, and then run something like
ECHO ababcdcdefefgg > JUNK1.TXT
and then run DIR and see how much diskspace you have after that.

Tom


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Re: [Freedos-user] Using USB Mass Storage on FreeDOS

[Eric Auer]

Hi Ercan,

> After this, I won't use USBASPI on FreeDOS.
> 
> How can I use a USB mass storage that is formatted
> FAT16 or FAT32 on FreeDOS with USBDOS?

...as Thomas wrote: If you boot from USB drive or if the
USB drive is already plugged in at boot time, the BIOS
will often support it directly (if modern enough and if
for example legacy support is enabled in the BIOS setup)
so you will not even need drivers. Of course only FAT16
and FAT32 will work, not NTFS or EXFAT sticks. You can
assume that only newer / larger sticks use the latter,
or use Windows or Linux to re-format them to FAT16/32.

Cheers, Eric


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Re: [Freedos-user] Using USB Mass Storage on FreeDOS

[Ercan Ersoy]

Thanks for replying.

After this, I won't use USBASPI on FreeDOS.

How can I use a USB mass storage that is formatted FAT16 or FAT32 on 
FreeDOS with USBDOS?

Best regards,
Ercan
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