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] Without DVD-ROM, USB working... install it from the HD?

[Aleksei Ivan]

Rugxulo: I've got a Windows 10 and 7 right now on the machine. I want to
keep dual (Win10 and FreeDOS). I'll try the virtual machine, tks, and for
the links.

Jerome: Thank you for your answer. I have no problem to install any Windows
or Linux from a partition to the same hard disk. It's easier and faster
than a DVD or USB, actually. But I've tried this with FreeDOS and nothing.
Switch HD is the way when there is not other solution. Always my last hard
alternative... ;)





On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 7:18 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.
>
> Since, you don't want to do that multiple times, I recommend the following.
>
> Manually partition the drive as C: (1-2GB) and D: (1GB). Install FreeDOS
> using the other machine to Drive C:. Then copy the entire contents of
> either the Big USB stick or CD to drive D:.
>
> This way all of the games and packages that don't get installed with BASE
> or FULL will be easily accessible on Drive D:.
>
> Reinsert Drive back in netbook.
>
> All done. Unlike Windows and some other OS releases, nothing will prevent
> you from moving the installed OS from one machine to another.
>
> Jerome
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Aleksei Ivan 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > I have a netbook without DVD-ROM, USB working, and, obliviously. no
>> FLOPPY DISK to install it. Is there any way to do it from the HD?
>> > Tks
>>
>>
>> If your computer doesn't have a CDROM drive, use the USB fob drive
>> installer. Write this to a USB fob drive and boot it to start the
>> install. The "Full" and "Lite" versions install the same FreeDOS, but
>> the "Lite" installer does not contain some extra bonus software
>> packages.
>>
>> You can find links to these installers on this page:
>> http://www.freedos.org/download/
>>
>> 
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>>
>
> 
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>
> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] Without DVD-ROM, USB working... install it from the HD?

[Jerome Shidel]

> 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. 

Since, you don't want to do that multiple times, I recommend the following.

Manually partition the drive as C: (1-2GB) and D: (1GB). Install FreeDOS using 
the other machine to Drive C:. Then copy the entire contents of either the Big 
USB stick or CD to drive D:. 

This way all of the games and packages that don't get installed with BASE or 
FULL will be easily accessible on Drive D:.

Reinsert Drive back in netbook.

All done. Unlike Windows and some other OS releases, nothing will prevent you 
from moving the installed OS from one machine to another.

Jerome




> 
>> On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:
>> On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Aleksei Ivan  wrote:
>> >
>> > I have a netbook without DVD-ROM, USB working, and, obliviously. no FLOPPY 
>> > DISK to install it. Is there any way to do it from the HD?
>> > Tks
>> 
>> 
>> If your computer doesn't have a CDROM drive, use the USB fob drive
>> installer. Write this to a USB fob drive and boot it to start the
>> install. The "Full" and "Lite" versions install the same FreeDOS, but
>> the "Lite" installer does not contain some extra bonus software
>> packages.
>> 
>> You can find links to these installers on this page:
>> http://www.freedos.org/download/
>> 
>> --
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>> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
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> 
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Re: [Freedos-user] Without DVD-ROM, USB working... install it from the HD?

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 4:00 PM, Aleksei Ivan  wrote:
>
> My USB ports are NOT working too. I have only to work with a installation
> partition on this netbook.
>
> I'm sorry for the confusion.

But what other OS (if any) are you running on that machine? What file systems?

Of course the easiest way to test FreeDOS is via virtual machine, e.g.
QEMU or VBox:

https://www.lazybrowndog.net/freedos/virtualbox/

If you can download the .ISO to a FAT partition, you can then install
from there via SHSUCDHD ("emulates a CD-ROM using an image file"):

http://adoxa.altervista.org/shsucdx/index.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/shsucdx/other/

Sorry, I don't know the details offhand, so I can't help you set it up
directly or give more specific advice.

Hmmm, this implies a working DOS already. Perhaps one of these will help?

http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/sys/sys-freedos-linux/

Dunno, it sounds harder to do than we'd all like.   :-(

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

[Aleksei Ivan]

My USB ports are NOT working too. I have only to work with a installation
partition on this netbook.

I'm sorry for the confusion.

On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Jim Hall  wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Aleksei Ivan 
> wrote:
> >
> > I have a netbook without DVD-ROM, USB working, and, obliviously. no
> FLOPPY DISK to install it. Is there any way to do it from the HD?
> > Tks
>
>
> If your computer doesn't have a CDROM drive, use the USB fob drive
> installer. Write this to a USB fob drive and boot it to start the
> install. The "Full" and "Lite" versions install the same FreeDOS, but
> the "Lite" installer does not contain some extra bonus software
> packages.
>
> You can find links to these installers on this page:
> http://www.freedos.org/download/
>
> 
> --
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> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
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Re: [Freedos-user] Without DVD-ROM, USB working... install it from the HD?

[Jim Hall]

On Sat, Mar 25, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Aleksei Ivan  wrote:
>
> I have a netbook without DVD-ROM, USB working, and, obliviously. no FLOPPY 
> DISK to install it. Is there any way to do it from the HD?
> Tks


If your computer doesn't have a CDROM drive, use the USB fob drive
installer. Write this to a USB fob drive and boot it to start the
install. The "Full" and "Lite" versions install the same FreeDOS, but
the "Lite" installer does not contain some extra bonus software
packages.

You can find links to these installers on this page:
http://www.freedos.org/download/

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