Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>

If you read back in this thread, the problem was dealt with at length and
solved.
Dennis

SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork.
a Original Message a
From: userbeit...@abwesend.de
Sent: Saturday, April 8, 2017 3:38 AM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

On 2017-03-24 03:46, Dennis Fenton wrote:
> Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy
img. It doesn't fit!
> So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a
dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS.

This is not possible. The FLOPPY.img contained in
http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip is exactly
1474560 bytes big, which is the size of a 1.44 MB floppy disk.

If this image doesn't fit, no 1.44 MB image will fit on your floppy. In
other words: the image is the right size and something else must be wrong.

And there is no need to be rude. "Pilot error" is correct in this case,
and is meant to make you think - maybe it is you after all who is wrong.
To make it absolutely clear: I can confirm that this image WILL FIT on
any 1.44 MB floppy drive. I cannot confirm if it will actually boot (I
didn't test this... yet... or not that I recall at the moment) BUT it is
the right size. Thus it must be you who is wrong with the "doesn't fit"
statement.

Even so, I understand very much that installing FreeDOS is not trivial
since you need to account for so many different hardware cases. And it
is very often just a driver that is missing; the original - long lost -
driver from the driver disk supplied with the original hardware (IDE,
SCSI, CDROM, ...) for DOS, OS/2 and Windows 3.1/NT 3.x... those were the
days...

Back then you would get the *then new* hardware with the driver on
floppy. Trying to install FreeDOS now, about two decades later, makes it
hard to get all the driver stuff (who preserves such things?) and
configurations right (jumpers, C/H/S in the BIOS etc. - who preserves
manuals and quick installation guides?).


Good luck! I hope you will figure it out!
(As I hope to find the time to make my 486 run FreeDOS eventually... I
didn't find the time since after the New Years holidays...)


Userbeitrag.


The answer from Dennis is correct:
> On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
>> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
>> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
>> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
>> SCSI CD drive.
>> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
>> 1.44 floppy.
> The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be
> installed on a CDROM.
>
> If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from
> floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to
> boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD
> you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See
> the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 +"
>
> See http://www.freedos.org/download/
>
>> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
>> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
>> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
>> Do you have a fix for this?
> The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions
> on the download page.
> __
> Dennis


--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Eric Auer]

From: Eric Auer 


Hi Rugxulo,

> If you already have the original gold standard of DOSes, i.e. MS-DOS
> (which was widely tested and hugely popular, by far the most
> ubiquitous DOS), then you don't urgently "need" any other DOS
> clone at all all, period.

Being the most widely used does not equal being the best.

For example Linux is great for certain use cases and this
is not changed by "but millions already have Windows" as
an argument to use Windows instead for those use cases...

Similarily, FreeDOS gives you a lot of DOS, a lot newer
than the early 1990s Microsoft version, often in a much
smaller package both in terms of disk space and in terms
of the amount of RAM needed. And newer drivers :-)

On the other hand, all DOS clones have to be extremely
similar to MS DOS when it comes to supporting software
apps for DOS. Because if you first have to port your
XYZ app for Linux to "the cool new OS ABC" which also
behaves a bit like DOS, then most users would simply
use XYZ directly in Linux and not care about DOS. But
as FreeDOS and other clones basically run ALL the good
old software for DOS, clones are clearly attractive.

Note that if you want to use more than 1 core of your
CPU or more than 4 GB of RAM, then DOS is not for you.

A multi tasking 64 bit OS will make you more happy then
and nobody complains about a few GB of disk space there.

A reason to use FreeDOS in spite of already having MS DOS:

Your new hardware has bad support from MS DOS and you want
to have more RAM free and a few new drivers. Of course you
are free to achieve that by MIXING the best files from both
versions of DOS, as you already owned MS DOS in my example.

Cheers, Eric



--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[userbeit...@abwesend.de]

From: userbeit...@abwesend.de


On 2017-03-24 03:46, Dennis Fenton wrote:
> Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy
img. It doesn't fit!
> So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a
dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS.

This is not possible. The FLOPPY.img contained in
http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip is exactly
1474560 bytes big, which is the size of a 1.44 MB floppy disk.

If this image doesn't fit, no 1.44 MB image will fit on your floppy. In
other words: the image is the right size and something else must be wrong.

And there is no need to be rude. "Pilot error" is correct in this case,
and is meant to make you think - maybe it is you after all who is wrong.
To make it absolutely clear: I can confirm that this image WILL FIT on
any 1.44 MB floppy drive. I cannot confirm if it will actually boot (I
didn't test this... yet... or not that I recall at the moment) BUT it is
the right size. Thus it must be you who is wrong with the "doesn't fit"
statement.

Even so, I understand very much that installing FreeDOS is not trivial
since you need to account for so many different hardware cases. And it
is very often just a driver that is missing; the original - long lost -
driver from the driver disk supplied with the original hardware (IDE,
SCSI, CDROM, ...) for DOS, OS/2 and Windows 3.1/NT 3.x... those were the
days...

Back then you would get the *then new* hardware with the driver on
floppy. Trying to install FreeDOS now, about two decades later, makes it
hard to get all the driver stuff (who preserves such things?) and
configurations right (jumpers, C/H/S in the BIOS etc. - who preserves
manuals and quick installation guides?).


Good luck! I hope you will figure it out!
(As I hope to find the time to make my 486 run FreeDOS eventually... I
didn't find the time since after the New Years holidays...)


Userbeitrag.


The answer from Dennis is correct:
> On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton  wrote:
>> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
>> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
>> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
>> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
>> SCSI CD drive.
>> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
>> 1.44 floppy.
> The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be
> installed on a CDROM.
>
> If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from
> floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to
> boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD
> you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See
> the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 -+"
>
> See http://www.freedos.org/download/
>
>> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
>> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
>> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
>> Do you have a fix for this?
> The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions
> on the download page.
> __
> Dennis


--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Rugxulo]

From: Rugxulo 

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 7:20 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
>
> I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or "no advantage to MS DOS".

If you already have the original gold standard of DOSes, i.e. MS-DOS
(which was widely tested and hugely popular, by far the most
ubiquitous DOS), then you don't urgently "need" any other DOS clone at
all, period.

Various DOS clones exist, and they all have minor advantages, but
overall they work the same (no extra APIs offered, no utilizing newer
advanced cpu features). For common DOS software (and loadable
drivers), they all behave effectively the same (more or less) on any
decent DOS kernel.

Reasons not to use MS-DOS? It's unsupported and proprietary and harder to find.
Reasons not to use FreeDOS? You just want to run the exact same
software that already runs perfectly on your current MS-DOS install.

Heck, apparently there are still people using TAWK, which is
(apparently) proprietary and long dead. One guy was complaining that
GAWK (aka, GPL) still doesn't 100% equal TAWK features despite being
20 years newer. Sound familiar? Old habits die hard.

(In hindsight, it's best to not write proprietary, non-standard,
unportable software at all, if you have a choice. Although nothing
lasts forever, not even standards, it does certainly help to try to be
portable/cross-platform from the start.)

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Ralf Quint]

From: Ralf Quint 

On 3/24/2017 4:36 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote:
> I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I
use Laplink. I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting Arachne
online. It reports low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker several times.
Using FAT32 does not help you in seeing drives and files on another
computer, either via laplink or by other means. This is either handled
by the program itself (as in the case of Laplink) or it is matter of the
network redirector being used...

As for being low on memory, the main source of your problems are likely
being the use of the SCSI/ASPI drivers as you mentioned in a previous
post. Those things are/were huge in terms of DOS in general. FreeDOS
won't give you here much of an advantage over any other DOS...

Ralf

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus


--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>

Don't need a network card with a dial-up modem. As for packet driver, Arachne
comes with some. I am definately willing to try other browsers.

SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork.
a Original Message a
From: Rugxulo
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:44 PM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 6:36 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I
use Laplink.

Okay, but that's only the kernel (and boot sector to load it), not all
of the other files. Any single floppy could handle that minimal
"install" for you.

> I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting Arachne online. It
reports
> low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker several times.

Unlikely to help much by itself, but who knows.

Not to discourage use of Arachne by any means, but there are other web
browsers as well, e.g. Links2 (which is 386+ DPMI, thus less stingy
about memory):

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/

(grab links-2.14.exe and links.crt)

But, again, that assumes a working packet driver and supported network
card. So you do actually have one??

--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Jerome Shidel]

From: Jerome Shidel 




> On Mar 24, 2017, at 6:40 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
>
>
> Hi Dennis,
>
>> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as
>> its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my
>> installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice
>> FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE.
>
> Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI
> and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get
> used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines
> from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config
> of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys
> MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax
> for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS.

I'd advise just plugging in his needed lines into the new configuration files.
But, what ever is easiest.

>
> Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to
> tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing
> C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs

If his old MS-DOS install is not under the FDOS\ directory (unless changed in
advanced mode), it will just ignore it. That goes for other directories as
well. If the existing target directory (Like FDOS\) for the OS already exists,
it will be backed up and the cleaned out.

> Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all
> files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can
> use the backups to repair the damage :-)

Yes, always backup!

Jerome

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>


Also, I'm curious. The 486 is not my main computer. It is a hobby project.
While I would be disappointed is anything was lost in the transition, it
wouldn't be the end of the world.
I'm taking a break now. Please don't be offended if you post something and I
don't respond immediately. I will let you all know how this works out.
Dennis

Sent-afrom-amy-aBlackBerry-a10-asmartphone-aon-athe-aBell-anetwork.
-a Original Message -a
From: Rugxulo
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:17 PM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as its
only OS.
> My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The
SCSI
> drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of
MSCDEX.EXE.

If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the
original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version
of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install
FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs,
sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up
several times!

It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so
that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention
if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might
make backing up files a lot easier.

If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable
floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel
with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have
MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at
all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much
more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike
MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large
drives.)

You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want
to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you:

http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/

--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>


I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I use
Laplink. I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting Arachne
online. It reports low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker several times.

Sent-afrom-amy-aBlackBerry-a10-asmartphone-aon-athe-aBell-anetwork.
-a Original Message -a
From: Rugxulo
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:17 PM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as its
only OS.
> My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The
SCSI
> drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of
MSCDEX.EXE.

If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the
original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version
of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install
FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs,
sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up
several times!

It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so
that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention
if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might
make backing up files a lot easier.

If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable
floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel
with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have
MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at
all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much
more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike
MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large
drives.)

You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want
to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you:

http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/

--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>

Thanks Eric.

SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork.
a Original Message a
From: Eric Auer
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:21 PM
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk


A backup on the same disk but different partitions
does not really help you if things go really wrong,
but as you say, data loss would be no real problem
for you... You should probably backup at least the
DOS SCSI drivers though ;-) Jerome also mentioned
the drivers as being the most backup worthy files.

As Jerome wrote, you can simply install to C:\FDOS
and leave most of the rest of C: and D: unharmed.
Outside the FDOS directory, only the config files
(autoexec / config / fdconfig / similar) and boot
files (kernel, maybe command) in the root directory
of C:\ and the boot sector should get overwritten,
not much else to worry about UNLESS you format or
fdisk... In which case everything would be gone.

As you already have some DOS (here: MS DOS) on the
PC, I agree with Jerome that "not booted update" is
worth a trying for a "smoother" change to FreeDOS.

I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or
"no advantage to MS DOS". Examples of advantages:

Several drivers are smaller in RAM compared to MS
DOS versions, FreeDOS supports FAT32 and LBA :-)

In particular, this means that you can (if your
BIOS is not too old) harddisks up to 2 TB size
and partitions of many GB size without problems.

Regards, Eric

> My internal hard drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The entire
> contents of the C:\DOS directory is backed up on drive D. I also have
> an MS-DOS boot disk that includes my current autoexec.bat and
> config.sys files.


--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dale E Sterner]

From: Dale E Sterner 

Has anyone noticed that on Ebay someone is selling
a new HP mini with FREEDOS as its OS.
Straight from the factory with FREEDOS no setting up.


DS



On Thu, 23 Mar 2017 20:32:15 -0500 Dennis Fenton 
writes:
> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the
> external
> SCSI CD drive.
> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
> 1.44 floppy.
> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can
> an
> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get
> it
> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
> Do you have a fix for this?
>
>
-
-
> 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
>


**
>From Dale Sterner - MS organic chemistry
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jo00975a052
***


Police Urge Americans to Carry This With Them at All Times
The Observer
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/58d692d3b3aad12d31f69st02duc

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Eric Auer]

From: Eric Auer 


A backup on the same disk but different partitions
does not really help you if things go really wrong,
but as you say, data loss would be no real problem
for you... You should probably backup at least the
DOS SCSI drivers though ;-) Jerome also mentioned
the drivers as being the most backup worthy files.

As Jerome wrote, you can simply install to C:\FDOS
and leave most of the rest of C: and D: unharmed.
Outside the FDOS directory, only the config files
(autoexec / config / fdconfig / similar) and boot
files (kernel, maybe command) in the root directory
of C:\ and the boot sector should get overwritten,
not much else to worry about UNLESS you format or
fdisk... In which case everything would be gone.

As you already have some DOS (here: MS DOS) on the
PC, I agree with Jerome that "not booted update" is
worth a trying for a "smoother" change to FreeDOS.

I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or
"no advantage to MS DOS". Examples of advantages:

Several drivers are smaller in RAM compared to MS
DOS versions, FreeDOS supports FAT32 and LBA :-)

In particular, this means that you can (if your
BIOS is not too old) harddisks up to 2 TB size
and partitions of many GB size without problems.

Regards, Eric

> My internal hard drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The entire
> contents of the C:\DOS directory is backed up on drive D. I also have
> an MS-DOS boot disk that includes my current autoexec.bat and
> config.sys files.


--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Rugxulo]

From: Rugxulo 


Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton  wrote:
>
> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as its
only OS.
> My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The
SCSI
> drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of
MSCDEX.EXE.

If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the
original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version
of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install
FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs,
sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up
several times!

It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so
that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention
if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might
make backing up files a lot easier.

If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable
floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel
with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have
MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at
all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much
more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike
MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large
drives.)

You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want
to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you:

http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Ira Minor]

From: Ira Minor <ira.mi...@gmail.com>

--===2471480371050748780==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a1148df5c151ae4054b865f99

--001a1148df5c151ae4054b865f99
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

If you already have Windows 98 SE, you have DOS 7.1. I prefer it to FreeDOS
because of better documentation.

Ira

irami...@gmail.com  805-212-0588

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 8:26 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Eric.
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
>   Original Message
> From: Eric Auer
> Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:21 PM
> To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
> Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
> Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
>
>
> A backup on the same disk but different partitions
> does not really help you if things go really wrong,
> but as you say, data loss would be no real problem
> for you... You should probably backup at least the
> DOS SCSI drivers though ;-) Jerome also mentioned
> the drivers as being the most backup worthy files.
>
> As Jerome wrote, you can simply install to C:\FDOS
> and leave most of the rest of C: and D: unharmed.
> Outside the FDOS directory, only the config files
> (autoexec / config / fdconfig / similar) and boot
> files (kernel, maybe command) in the root directory
> of C:\ and the boot sector should get overwritten,
> not much else to worry about UNLESS you format or
> fdisk... In which case everything would be gone.
>
> As you already have some DOS (here: MS DOS) on the
> PC, I agree with Jerome that "not booted update" is
> worth a trying for a "smoother" change to FreeDOS.
>
> I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or
> "no advantage to MS DOS". Examples of advantages:
>
> Several drivers are smaller in RAM compared to MS
> DOS versions, FreeDOS supports FAT32 and LBA :-)
>
> In particular, this means that you can (if your
> BIOS is not too old) harddisks up to 2 TB size
> and partitions of many GB size without problems.
>
> Regards, Eric
>
> > My internal hard drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The entire
> > contents of the C:\DOS directory is backed up on drive D. I also have
> > an MS-DOS boot disk that includes my current autoexec.bat and
> > config.sys files.
>
>
> 
> --
> 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
>
> 
> --
> 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
>

--001a1148df5c151ae4054b865f99
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

If
you already have Windows 98 SE, you have DOS 7.1. I prefer it to FreeDOS
because of better documentation.Iramailto:irami...@gmail.com; target="_blank">irami...@gmail.com
-a805-212-0588
On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 8:26 PM, Dennis Fenton
mailto:dwf...@gmail.com;
target="_blank">dwf...@gmail.com wrote:Thanks Eric.

Sent-afrom-amy-aBlackBerry-a10-asmartphone-aon-athe-aBell-anetwork.
-a Original Message -a
From: Eric Auer
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:21 PM
To: mailto:freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net;>freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about
FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk


A backup on the same disk but
different partitions
does not really help you if things go really wrong,
but as you say, data loss would be no real problem
for you... You should probably backup at least the
DOS SCSI drivers though ;-) Jerome also mentioned
the drivers as being the most backup worthy files.

As Jerome wrote, you can simply install to C:\FDOS
and leave most of the rest of C: and D: unharmed.
Outside the FDOS directory, only the config files
(autoexec / config / fdconfig / similar) and boot
files (kernel, maybe command) in the root directory
of C:\ and the boot sector should get overwritten,
not much else to worry about UNLESS you format or
fdisk... In which case everything would be gone.

As you already have some DOS (here: MS DOS) on the
PC, I agree with Jerome that not booted update is
worth a trying for a

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Jerome Shidel]

From: Jerome Shidel <jer...@shidel.net>




> On Mar 24, 2017, at 6:15 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as its
only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed
programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own
equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE.
>

Ok, this is my advice.

First backup:
Create a MS-DOS boot floppy as a backup. That way if things go sideways you
have a working boot disk with your needed drivers.

Next Test:
Without messing around with the FreeDOS install floppy, just boot it. It should
work fine up to the "Gathering information" message. Then it would give you an
error stating it cannot find the packages. You can then quit to The command
prompt and look around. If you see drive C:, then let's try the "not booted
upgrade" (NBU) install method or two drive (DOSBox) method.

Install:
The two drive method has you copy the contents of the CD to a separate drive.
Then boot/run the FreeDOS setup program.

The NBU method may be easiest for you. Basically, you just boot the system like
normal. Then insert the floppy and CD. Go to drive A: and run "Setup". Make
sure you let it backup your current OS! You may want to clean as much as
possible out of your existing config.sys and autoexec.bat before using the
upgrade method. That way there are fewer chances of a conflict occurring.

Note:
The NBU method is not an "official" way of installing an OS. It may fail
horribly. That being said, I did what I could to get it to function properly.
And, it worked fine in the limited testing I did with NBU installs.

Jerome

> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
>   Original Message
> From: Eric Auer
> Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 4:33 PM
> To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
> Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
> Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
>
>
> Hi Dennis,
>
>> I downloaded and installed WinImage 9.0 on my win98 computer. It has a
>> floppy drive. I successfully wrote the img file to a floppy.
>> Another issue occurred to me. My cd-rom drive is a SCSI external type.
>
> That might be a problem, depending on your SCSI controller
> and whether it has good BIOS support etc etc. I assume you
> refer to the CD-ROM of the PC where you want to install DOS?
>
> By the way, does that PC also have another operating system?
> Do you want to replace that by DOS? Or install both side by
> side as "dual boot"? The latter requires special steps, the
> former can mean that current disk contents get overwritten.
>
>> The new boot floppy has an fdconfig.sys and an autoexecrCA.bat file. I'm
thinking
>> I need to add lines to both to recognize the SCSI drive when it boots.
>
> If you have good DOS drivers for the drive and know how to
> configure them, then you can do that. If you plan to install
> DOS on a computer where you already have or can install some
> operating system with easy internet, then I would recommend
> another method: Copy the ISO file of FreeDOS to a FAT drive
> on the PC where you want to install DOS and then "mount" it
> as if it would be the CD of FreeDOS :-) If the boot floppy
> has no automatic support for that, then I am sure that some
> extra explanation of this trick could be given by Rugxulo or
> Jerome, with examples of what to put where in fdconfig and
> autoexec on the boot floppy :-)
>
> The idea is that you need no hardware specific drivers at all
> to open the ISO if you already have it on the future DOS PC,
> so you avoid all worries about SCSI and CDROM drivers then.
>
> You still do need that special ISO driver, of course, but as
> that is not specific to certain hardware, it is easy to use.
>
> Cheers, Eric
>
>
>
> --
> 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
>
> --
> 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


--
Check out the vibrant tech community on

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Ralf Quint]

From: Ralf Quint 

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--===4382838559081096216==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="4D1B7CFD38F21CC1995B7B76"

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--4D1B7CFD38F21CC1995B7B76
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

On 3/23/2017 9:47 PM, Gregg Eshelman wrote:
> It is possible to format a floppy a bit over size. Most drives will
> accommodate 2 to 4 extra tracks. Depending on the drive and the
> controller it's possible to alter the number of sectors per track, but
> all tracks must have the same number of sectors. Typically, altering
> the number of sectors renders the format non-bootable.
>
> Schenk & Horn CopyStar is one such program. It's old, originally from
> 1994, but it's known to work on Windows 2000, Server 2003 and older.
> I've not tried it on XP and later. Probably not compatible with 64 bit
> Windows. http://www.programfiles.com/Default.asp?LinkId=13681
>
> Microsoft used an over-capacity format they called DMF. For programs
> (like Windows 95) where the first disk had to be bootable it was
> standard 1.44M.
>
> IBM used a different over-capacity format for OS/2's install disks,
> but nothing included with OS/2 could write data to the disks, despite
> the inclusion of a utility to create blank disks with that format.
> (The largest all floppy install I ever did was OS/2 Warp 3.0, followed
> by a couple of large updates.)
Sorry, but all that is irrelevant to the problem at hand. He tried to
copy an image file, that includes the file system as a single file onto
a floppy disk that already contained a file system. He needed to use a
program that write that image file sector by sector onto a floppy disk.
And that way it will fit perfectly, no overformatting needed...
>
> If only the entire OEM computer industry had wholeheartedly adopted
> the 2.88M floppy, instead of only IBM and Compaq sorta halfway
> supporting it. "Hey look! We're making 2.88M floppy drives standard on
> ALL our computers! How about YOU, Hewlett Packard, Packard Bell,
> Gateway 2000... *Apple*? You wanna fall behind us? Keep using that
> obsolete 1.44M!"
The problem with the general adaptation of 2.88MB floppy disks was that
those drives did have compatibility issues with reliably reading and
more so, WRITING 1.44MB disks...

Ralf


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

--4D1B7CFD38F21CC1995B7B76
Content-Type: text/html; charset=windows-1252
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit


  

  
  
On 3/23/2017 9:47 PM, Gregg Eshelman
  wrote:


  
It is possible
  to format a floppy a bit over size. Most drives will
  accommodate 2 to 4 extra tracks. Depending on the drive and
  the controller it's possible to alt
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton 

--===1415927088984765351==
Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


  Thanks



 SentfrommyBlackBerry10smartphoneontheBellnetwork.



From: Ralf QuintSent: Friday, March 24, 2017 
12:15 PMTo: 
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion 
and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: 
[Freedos-user] boot floppy disk ima
ge too big for a disk




On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton
  wrote:


  I
was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space
message. 

That is to be expected.

A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY
sector on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes
the BPB-BIOS Paramter Block), 14 sectors for the root directory and
18 sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a
formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an
unformatted disk).

To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that
writes that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a
single file as you have tried.

On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the
"dd" command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you
have another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more
than two decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which
also does works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or
CD-ROMs...

Ralf
  


https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=emailutm_source=linkutm_campaign=sig-emailutm_content=emailclientutm_term=icon;
 target="_blank">https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif;
 width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;">
Virus-free. https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=emailutm_source=linkutm_campaign=sig-emailutm_content=emailclientutm_term=link;
 target="_blank" style="color: #4453ea;">www.avast.com







--===1415927088984765351==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

--
Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
--===1415927088984765351==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

--===1415927088984765351==--

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Eric Auer]

From: Eric Auer 



Hi Dennis,

> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as
> its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my
> installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice
> FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE.

Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI
and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get
used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines
from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config
of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys
MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax
for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS.

Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to
tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing
C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs.

Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all
files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can
use the backups to repair the damage :-)

Regards, Eric



--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>


Check!

Sent-afrom-amy-aBlackBerry-a10-asmartphone-aon-athe-aBell-anetwork.
-a Original Message -a
From: Eric Auer
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 5:41 PM
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk


Hi Dennis,

> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as
> its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my
> installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice
> FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE.

Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI
and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get
used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines
from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config
of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys
MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax
for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS.

Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to
tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing
C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs.

Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all
files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can
use the backups to repair the damage :-)

Regards, Eric



--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Ralf Quint]

From: Ralf Quint 

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--===1656748613992134465==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="3E16757BA8FAC21C53D0B19F"

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--3E16757BA8FAC21C53D0B19F
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton wrote:
> I was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space message.
That is to be expected.

A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY sector
on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes the
BPB-BIOS Paramter Block),  14 sectors for the root directory and 18
sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a
formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an
unformatted disk).

To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that writes
that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a single file as
you have tried.

On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the "dd"
command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you have
another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more than two
decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which also does
works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or CD-ROMs...

Ralf


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

--3E16757BA8FAC21C53D0B19F
Content-Type: text/html; charset=windows-1252
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit


  

  
  
On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton
  wrote:


  I
was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space
message. 

That is to be expected.

A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>

Thanks. I'll try.

SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork.
a Original Message a
From: Jerome Shidel
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:17 AM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk


> On Mar 23, 2017, at 11:56 PM, Felix Miata <mrma...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes,
2847
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded
image
> would not fit here either.

I see where the confusion may be coming from.

After formatting a floppy image using FreeDOS, it states:

1,474,560 bytes total disk space (disk size)
1,456,664 bytes available on disk (free clusters)

It would appear that the number 1457664 is the usable empty free space on the
disk once it has been low level formatted and then formatted with the standard
DOS file system. So, you probably do have a correct sized floppy diskette.
However, you will need to use the appropriate tool to place the floppy image
file onto the diskette. Other messages in this thread mention programs like
rawrite & dd. These all work very well for this task.

Jerome
--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>

I see.

SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork.
a Original Message a
From: Eric Auer
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 11:38 AM
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk


Hi Felix and Dennis,

> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes,
2847
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded
image
> would not fit here either.

That is a misunderstanding. The FLOPPY really is 80 tracks, 2 sides,
18 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector: 1474560 bytes is correct.

However, if you want to put a FILE on a floppy, then the maximum
size for the FILE is less, because some space is used by the FAT
filesystem. So 1457664 is the size left for you to put files on.

This is why the boot floppy disk image has to be copied with some
special tools (Linux: dd, DOS: diskcopy, Windows: ..., Mac: ...)
which copy contents, filesystem, boot sector etc. all at once.

This also is why you do not see files IN that single image file
in FD12FLOPPY.zip: You would have to "open" the file as a FAT
filesystem to see the files that you will later see on your disk
after putting the diskimage as a whole on the floppy.

If we would offer the files separately in the ZIP, you would be
able to see and edit them at once, which is good, BUT you would
need a separate tool to install a boot sector to make it bootable,
which is inconvenient, because SYS is only available for DOS and
similar tools for other OS (like makebootfat or sys-freedos.pl
for Linux) would need specific command line options to produce
optimized DOS boot sectors.

Regards, Eric



--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>


The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only
OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The
SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of
MSCDEX.EXE.

Sent-afrom-amy-aBlackBerry-a10-asmartphone-aon-athe-aBell-anetwork.
-a Original Message -a
From: Eric Auer
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 4:33 PM
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk


Hi Dennis,

> I downloaded and installed WinImage 9.0 on my win98 computer. It has a
> floppy drive. I successfully wrote the img file to a floppy.
> Another issue occurred to me. My cd-rom drive is a SCSI external type.

That might be a problem, depending on your SCSI controller
and whether it has good BIOS support etc etc. I assume you
refer to the CD-ROM of the PC where you want to install DOS?

By the way, does that PC also have another operating system?
Do you want to replace that by DOS? Or install both side by
side as "dual boot"? The latter requires special steps, the
former can mean that current disk contents get overwritten.

> The new boot floppy has an fdconfig.sys and an autoexecrCA.bat file. I'm
thinking
> I need to add lines to both to recognize the SCSI drive when it boots.

If you have good DOS drivers for the drive and know how to
configure them, then you can do that. If you plan to install
DOS on a computer where you already have or can install some
operating system with easy internet, then I would recommend
another method: Copy the ISO file of FreeDOS to a FAT drive
on the PC where you want to install DOS and then "mount" it
as if it would be the CD of FreeDOS :-) If the boot floppy
has no automatic support for that, then I am sure that some
extra explanation of this trick could be given by Rugxulo or
Jerome, with examples of what to put where in fdconfig and
autoexec on the boot floppy :-)

The idea is that you need no hardware specific drivers at all
to open the ISO if you already have it on the future DOS PC,
so you avoid all worries about SCSI and CDROM drivers then.

You still do need that special ISO driver, of course, but as
that is not specific to certain hardware, it is easy to use.

Cheers, Eric



--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Eric Auer]

From: Eric Auer 


Hi Felix and Dennis,

> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes,
2847
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded
image
> would not fit here either.

That is a misunderstanding. The FLOPPY really is 80 tracks, 2 sides,
18 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector: 1474560 bytes is correct.

However, if you want to put a FILE on a floppy, then the maximum
size for the FILE is less, because some space is used by the FAT
filesystem. So 1457664 is the size left for you to put files on.

This is why the boot floppy disk image has to be copied with some
special tools (Linux: dd, DOS: diskcopy, Windows: ..., Mac: ...)
which copy contents, filesystem, boot sector etc. all at once.

This also is why you do not see files IN that single image file
in FD12FLOPPY.zip: You would have to "open" the file as a FAT
filesystem to see the files that you will later see on your disk
after putting the diskimage as a whole on the floppy.

If we would offer the files separately in the ZIP, you would be
able to see and edit them at once, which is good, BUT you would
need a separate tool to install a boot sector to make it bootable,
which is inconvenient, because SYS is only available for DOS and
similar tools for other OS (like makebootfat or sys-freedos.pl
for Linux) would need specific command line options to produce
optimized DOS boot sectors.

Regards, Eric



--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>

--===8131631414762694562==
Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


  I downloaded and installed WinImage 9.0
on my win98 computer. It has a floppy drive. I successfully wrote the img file
to a floppy.Another issue
occurred to me. My cd-rom drive is a SCSI external type.The new boot floppy has an fdconfig.sys
and an autoexecrCA.bat file. I'm thinking I need to add lines to both to
recognize the SCSI drive when it boots.

  


 SentfrommyBlackBerry10smartphoneontheBellnetwork.



From: Ralf QuintSent: Friday, March 24, 2017 
12:15 PMTo: 
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion 
and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: 
[Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for
 a disk




On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton
  wrote:


  I
was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space
message. 

That is to be expected.

A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY
sector on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes
the BPB-BIOS Paramter Block), 14 sectors for the root directory and
18 sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a
formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an
unformatted disk).

To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that
writes that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a
single file as you have tried.

On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the
"dd" command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you
have another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more
than two decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which
also does works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or
CD-ROMs...

Ralf
  


https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=emailutm_source=linkutm_campaign=sig-emailutm_content=emailclientutm_term=icon;
 target="_blank">https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif;
 width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;">
Virus-free. https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=emailutm_source=linkutm_campaign=sig-emailutm_content=emailclientutm_term=link;
 target="_blank" style="color: #4453ea;">www.avast.com







--===8131631414762694562==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

--
Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
--===8131631414762694562==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

--===8131631414762694562==--

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Jerome Shidel]

From: Jerome Shidel 


A 1.44MB 3.5rCY DS HD floppy disk is 1,474,560 bytes when formatted. (2MB
unformatted)

It used 512 byte sectors, 18 sectors per track, 80 tracks per side and is/was a
two sided media.

512 * 18 * 80 * 2 = 1474560 / 1024 = 1.44MB floppy.

More information on this can be found at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floppy_disk_formats

Also, on Mac, Unix and Linux dd will write the disk image fine with a command
like:

sudo dd if=FD12FLOPPY.img of=/dev/fd0

(or similar)

As a side note, PC-DOS 7 used oddly formatted diskettes for its install media.
These provided a capacity lager than 1.44MB on its 3.5rCY install media. This
was good to reduce the number of diskettes required. But, it made it more
difficult to clone the original floppy disks for backup purposes. Also, it was
not 100% compatible with all floppy drives and could cause other headaches as
well.

Jerome
--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Gregg Eshelman]

From: Gregg Eshelman <g_ala...@yahoo.com>

--===5062282711183416658==
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="=_Part_1937484_1016577170.1490330874749"
Content-Length: 7708

--=_Part_1937484_1016577170.1490330874749
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

It is possible to format a floppy a bit over size. Most drives will accommodate
2 to 4 extra tracks. Depending on the drive and the controller it's possible to
alter the number of sectors per track, but all tracks must have the same number
of sectors. Typically, altering the number of sectors renders the format
non-bootable.

Schenk & Horn CopyStar is one such program. It's old, originally from 1994, but
it's known to work on Windows 2000, Server 2003 and older. I've not tried it on
XP and later. Probably not compatible with 64 bit Windows.
http://www.programfiles.com/Default.asp?LinkId=13681

Microsoft used an over-capacity format they called DMF. For programs (like
Windows 95) where the first disk had to be bootable it was standard 1.44M.
IBM used a different over-capacity format for OS/2's install disks, but nothing
included with OS/2 could write data to the disks, despite the inclusion of a
utility to create blank disks with that format. (The largest all floppy install
I ever did was OS/2 Warp 3.0, followed by a couple of large updates.)

If only the entire OEM computer industry had wholeheartedly adopted the 2.88M
floppy, instead of only IBM and Compaq sorta halfway supporting it. "Hey look!
We're making 2.88M floppy drives standard on ALL our computers! How about YOU,
Hewlett Packard, Packard Bell, Gateway 2000... *Apple*? You wanna fall behind
us? Keep using that obsolete 1.44M!"

  From: Felix Miata <mrma...@earthlink.net>
 To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
 Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 9:57 PM
 Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
"boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847

512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded
image
would not fit here either.
-- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

-a Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata-a ***-a http://fm.no-ip.com/


--=_Part_1937484_1016577170.1490330874749
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

It
is possible to format a floppy a bit over size. Most drives will accommodate 2
to 4 extra tracks. Depending on the drive and the controller it's possible to
alter the number of sectors per track, but all tracks must have the same number
of sectors. Typically, altering the number of sectors renders the format
non-bootable.Schenk  Horn CopyStar is one 
such program. It's old, originally from 1994, but it's known to work on Windows 
2000, Server 2003 and older. I've not tried it on XP and later. Probably not 
compatible with 64 bit Windows. http://www.programfiles.com/Default.asp?LinkId=13681; 
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1490315626629_169281" 
class="">http://www.programfiles.com/Default.asp?LinkId=13681Microsoft used an 
over-capacity format they called DMF. For programs (like Windows 95) where the 
first disk had to be bootable it was standard 1.44M.IBM used a different over-capacity 
format for OS/2's install disks, but nothing included with OS/2 could write 
data to the disks, despite the inclusion of a utility to create blank disks 
with that format. (The largest all floppy install I ever did was OS/2 Warp 3.0, 
followed by a couple of large updates.)If only the entire OEM computer 
industry had wholeheartedly adopted the 2.88M floppy, instead of only IBM and 
Compaq sorta halfway supporting it. "Hey look! We're making 2.88M floppy drives 
standard on ALL our computers! How about YOU, Hewlett Packard, Packard Bell, 
Gateway 2000... *Apple*? You wanna fall behind us? Keep using that obsolete 
1.44M!"   From: Felix Miata 
mrma...@earthlink.net To: 
freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net  Sent: Thursday, March 
23, 2017 9:57 PM Subject: Re: 
[Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk   
I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip; 
target="_blank" 
id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1490315626629_169218">http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
 "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 
1457664 total bytes, 2847 512 byte sectors. The image 
downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded image would not 
fit here either.-- "The wise are known for their 
understanding, and pleasantwords are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Jerome Shidel]

From: Jerome Shidel 


> On Mar 23, 2017, at 11:56 PM, Felix Miata  wrote:
>
> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes,
2847
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded
image
> would not fit here either.

I see where the confusion may be coming from.

After formatting a floppy image using FreeDOS, it states:

1,474,560 bytes total disk space (disk size)
1,456,664 bytes available on disk (free clusters)

It would appear that the number 1457664 is the usable empty free space on the
disk once it has been low level formatted and then formatted with the standard
DOS file system. So, you probably do have a correct sized floppy diskette.
However, you will need to use the appropriate tool to place the floppy image
file onto the diskette. Other messages in this thread mention programs like
rawrite & dd. These all work very well for this task.

Jerome
--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[dmccunney]

From: dmccunney 


On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton  wrote:
> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
> SCSI CD drive.
> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
> 1.44 floppy.

The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy.  It expects to be
installed on a CDROM.

If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from
floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to
boot from.  That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD
you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy.  See
the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 -+"

See http://www.freedos.org/download/

> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
> Do you have a fix for this?

The problem is pilot error.  Please read the applicable instructions
on the download page.
__
Dennis

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>

Thanks. I'll try diskcopy.

SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork.
a Original Message a
From: Rugxulo
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:49 AM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Hi,

On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 10:56 PM, Felix Miata <mrma...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes,
2847
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded
image
> would not fit here either.

I downloaded the above (FD12FLOPPY.zip) and two of my own images
(BARE_DOS and MetaDOS). All of them have the same size (1474560). A
simple "file *.img" tells me that they all have 2880 sectors. I've
written a few real floppies in recent years with some of these and had
no obvious problems.

The obvious tool to use, among a million others variations, would be DISKCOPY:

http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/diskcopy.htm

(Here's some alternatives.)

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35297505/

> -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
> words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

So, just for completeness, (direct or indirect) links to a bunch of
(Free)DOS floppy images are found below here:

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35557316/

Keep in mind that a 1.44 MB floppy doesn't hold many files (e.g. a
full FD "BASE" won't fit) and isn't actively used by most users
anymore (even in FreeDOS circles). Heck, floppies aren't even made
anymore, and most modern x86 machines lack the drives (although you
can probably still buy a USB floppy drive like I did). Thus it's
somewhat ignored in favor of newer, more popular media. So there is no
"full" install via floppy, thus you must figure things out manually
(for the most part). Networking (using a working packet driver) helps
tremendously. Otherwise you're stuck with copying manually
(sneakernet).

--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Felix Miata]

From: Felix Miata 

I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
"boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847

512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded
image
would not fit here either.
-- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

   Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: less than infinite (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Rugxulo]

From: Rugxulo 

Hi,

On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 10:56 PM, Felix Miata  wrote:
>
> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes,
2847
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded
image
> would not fit here either.

I downloaded the above (FD12FLOPPY.zip) and two of my own images
(BARE_DOS and MetaDOS). All of them have the same size (1474560). A
simple "file *.img" tells me that they all have 2880 sectors. I've
written a few real floppies in recent years with some of these and had
no obvious problems.

The obvious tool to use, among a million others variations, would be DISKCOPY:

http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/diskcopy.htm

(Here's some alternatives.)

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35297505/

> -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
> words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

So, just for completeness, (direct or indirect) links to a bunch of
(Free)DOS floppy images are found below here:

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35557316/

Keep in mind that a 1.44 MB floppy doesn't hold many files (e.g. a
full FD "BASE" won't fit) and isn't actively used by most users
anymore (even in FreeDOS circles). Heck, floppies aren't even made
anymore, and most modern x86 machines lack the drives (although you
can probably still buy a USB floppy drive like I did). Thus it's
somewhat ignored in favor of newer, more popular media. So there is no
"full" install via floppy, thus you must figure things out manually
(for the most part). Networking (using a working packet driver) helps
tremendously. Otherwise you're stuck with copying manually
(sneakernet).

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>

Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy img.
It doesn't fit!
So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a
dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS.

SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork.
a Original Message a
From: dmccunney
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 9:26 PM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
> SCSI CD drive.
> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
> 1.44 floppy.

The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be
installed on a CDROM.

If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from
floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to
boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD
you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See
the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 +"

See http://www.freedos.org/download/

> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
> Do you have a fix for this?

The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions
on the download page.
__
Dennis

--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

From: Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com>

No bad sectors. I tried two different freshly formatted disks and ran scandisk
on them just to be sure.

SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork.
a Original Message a
From: Felix Miata
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:30 PM
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Dennis Fenton composed on 2017-03-23 20:32 (UTC-0500):

> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
> SCSI CD drive.
> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
> 1.44 floppy.

How much "too big"? Is it because your floppy has bad sectors. Floppies without

bad sectors are rather uncommon around here. For this reason I try to avoid
image writes, which demand all sectors in the media's spec be usable, and a
format that worked once may well be that last the media will accept without
error.

> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
> Do you have a fix for this?--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

--
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

--
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

--- Internet Rex 2.29
 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901)
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3
 *  Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

If you read back in this thread, the problem was dealt with at length and 
solved.
Dennis

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: userbeit...@abwesend.de
Sent: Saturday, April 8, 2017 3:38 AM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

On 2017-03-24 03:46, Dennis Fenton wrote:
> Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy 
> img. It doesn't fit!
> So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a 
> dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS.

This is not possible. The FLOPPY.img contained in 
http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip is exactly 
1474560 bytes big, which is the size of a 1.44 MB floppy disk.

If this image doesn't fit, no 1.44 MB image will fit on your floppy. In 
other words: the image is the right size and something else must be wrong.

And there is no need to be rude. "Pilot error" is correct in this case, 
and is meant to make you think - maybe it is you after all who is wrong. 
To make it absolutely clear: I can confirm that this image WILL FIT on 
any 1.44 MB floppy drive. I cannot confirm if it will actually boot (I 
didn't test this... yet... or not that I recall at the moment) BUT it is 
the right size. Thus it must be you who is wrong with the "doesn't fit" 
statement.

Even so, I understand very much that installing FreeDOS is not trivial 
since you need to account for so many different hardware cases. And it 
is very often just a driver that is missing; the original - long lost - 
driver from the driver disk supplied with the original hardware (IDE, 
SCSI, CDROM, ...) for DOS, OS/2 and Windows 3.1/NT 3.x... those were the 
days...

Back then you would get the *then new* hardware with the driver on 
floppy. Trying to install FreeDOS now, about two decades later, makes it 
hard to get all the driver stuff (who preserves such things?) and 
configurations right (jumpers, C/H/S in the BIOS etc. - who preserves
manuals and quick installation guides?).


Good luck! I hope you will figure it out!
(As I hope to find the time to make my 486 run FreeDOS eventually... I 
didn't find the time since after the New Years holidays...)


Userbeitrag.


The answer from Dennis is correct:
> On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
>> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
>> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
>> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
>> SCSI CD drive.
>> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
>> 1.44 floppy.
> The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be
> installed on a CDROM.
>
> If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from
> floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to
> boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD
> you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See
> the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 »"
>
> See http://www.freedos.org/download/
>
>> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
>> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
>> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
>> Do you have a fix for this?
> The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions
> on the download page.
> __
> Dennis


--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[userbeitrag]

On 2017-03-24 03:46, Dennis Fenton wrote:
> Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy 
> img. It doesn't fit!
> So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a 
> dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS.

This is not possible. The FLOPPY.img contained in 
http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip is exactly 
1474560 bytes big, which is the size of a 1.44 MB floppy disk.

If this image doesn't fit, no 1.44 MB image will fit on your floppy. In 
other words: the image is the right size and something else must be wrong.

And there is no need to be rude. "Pilot error" is correct in this case, 
and is meant to make you think - maybe it is you after all who is wrong. 
To make it absolutely clear: I can confirm that this image WILL FIT on 
any 1.44 MB floppy drive. I cannot confirm if it will actually boot (I 
didn't test this... yet... or not that I recall at the moment) BUT it is 
the right size. Thus it must be you who is wrong with the "doesn't fit" 
statement.

Even so, I understand very much that installing FreeDOS is not trivial 
since you need to account for so many different hardware cases. And it 
is very often just a driver that is missing; the original - long lost - 
driver from the driver disk supplied with the original hardware (IDE, 
SCSI, CDROM, ...) for DOS, OS/2 and Windows 3.1/NT 3.x... those were the 
days...

Back then you would get the *then new* hardware with the driver on 
floppy. Trying to install FreeDOS now, about two decades later, makes it 
hard to get all the driver stuff (who preserves such things?) and 
configurations right (jumpers, C/H/S in the BIOS etc. - who preserves 
manuals and quick installation guides?).


Good luck! I hope you will figure it out!
(As I hope to find the time to make my 486 run FreeDOS eventually... I 
didn't find the time since after the New Years holidays...)


Userbeitrag.


The answer from Dennis is correct:
> On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton  wrote:
>> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
>> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
>> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
>> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
>> SCSI CD drive.
>> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
>> 1.44 floppy.
> The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be
> installed on a CDROM.
>
> If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from
> floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to
> boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD
> you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See
> the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 »"
>
> See http://www.freedos.org/download/
>
>> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
>> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
>> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
>> Do you have a fix for this?
> The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions
> on the download page.
> __
> Dennis


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Rugxulo]

Hi, Eric,

This reply may be pointless, but I'm sure you understand where I'm
coming from. In no way am I pretending that MS-DOS is technically
superior or preferred. The weakest claim is only that it is "probably"
more compatible (which is unavoidable since it's the original). It is
dead and should normally be hard to find, but hey, the OP already had
a copy, so 

On Sun, Mar 26, 2017 at 4:34 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
>
>> If you already have the original gold standard of DOSes, i.e. MS-DOS
>> (which was widely tested and hugely popular, by far the most
>> ubiquitous DOS), then you don't urgently "need" any other DOS
>> clone at all all, period.
>
> Being the most widely used does not equal being the best.
> Similarily, FreeDOS gives you a lot of DOS, a lot newer
> than the early 1990s Microsoft version, often in a much
> smaller package both in terms of disk space and in terms
> of the amount of RAM needed. And newer drivers :-)
>
> On the other hand, all DOS clones have to be extremely
> similar to MS DOS when it comes to supporting software
> apps for DOS. Because if you first have to port your
> XYZ app for Linux to "the cool new OS ABC" which also
> behaves a bit like DOS, then most users would simply
> use XYZ directly in Linux and not care about DOS. But
> as FreeDOS and other clones basically run ALL the good
> old software for DOS, clones are clearly attractive.
>
> A reason to use FreeDOS in spite of already having MS DOS:
>
> Your new hardware has bad support from MS DOS and you want
> to have more RAM free and a few new drivers. Of course you
> are free to achieve that by MIXING the best files from both
> versions of DOS, as you already owned MS DOS in my example.

I'm not a salesman. The OP already had MS-DOS, so it's very hard to
sell somebody a clone of what they already have. I don't even use or
recommend MS-DOS (or DR-DOS) anymore, only FreeDOS. For sure, FreeDOS
is "free"-r, much easier to use, study, modify, and redistribute. Yes,
you can still barely find MS-DOS somewhere else (legally), but it's
harder than it used to be.

Userland is not a "unique" advantage because most DOS developers these
days share tools and drivers. The kernel itself just doesn't have all
the bang/whiz/pop/flash new-fangled cpu features that users blindly
expect when a "new" version of "DOS" is released in 2017. Again, I'm
not a salesman, nor a kernel dev, so as an end user I have a hard time
pretending that FreeDOS is a bajillion times more advanced in the
kernel than the other DOSes. AFAIK, it does the same boring ol' stuff
and nothing extra fancy, providing no extra APIs, utilizing no
advanced cpu features. I just can't brag too hard when the
improvements are minor. Most of the enhancements over MS-DOS (etc) are
banal: freedom, better tools, community, etc.

So, again, FreeDOS works great, but it's a hard sell to someone else,
especially if they already have the original.

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dale E Sterner]

You might have trouble with sound drivers. MS dos 7.1 wanted me to use
windows
to install one so that I could enjoy Windows but no windows to use.
 FREEDOS doesn't care.


DS


On Sun, 26 Mar 2017 13:58:08 -0500 Dennis Fenton 
writes:
> Thanks to everyone on the FreeDOS list who tried to help me. I 
> learned
> a few things. After careful consideration I decided to go in a
> different direction. I installed MS-DOS 7.10. It is now running
> smoothly on my 486 laptop. I had to set up the SCSI drives by 
> writing
> a few lines into autoexec.bat and one into config.sys.
> Happy computing.
> 
> On 25/03/2017, Rugxulo  wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 7:20 PM, Eric Auer  
> wrote:
> >>
> >> I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or "no advantage 
> to MS
> >> DOS".
> >
> > If you already have the original gold standard of DOSes, i.e. 
> MS-DOS
> > (which was widely tested and hugely popular, by far the most
> > ubiquitous DOS), then you don't urgently "need" any other DOS 
> clone at
> > all, period.
> >
> > Various DOS clones exist, and they all have minor advantages, but
> > overall they work the same (no extra APIs offered, no utilizing 
> newer
> > advanced cpu features). For common DOS software (and loadable
> > drivers), they all behave effectively the same (more or less) on 
> any
> > decent DOS kernel.
> >
> > Reasons not to use MS-DOS? It's unsupported and proprietary and 
> harder to
> > find.
> > Reasons not to use FreeDOS? You just want to run the exact same
> > software that already runs perfectly on your current MS-DOS 
> install.
> >
> > Heck, apparently there are still people using TAWK, which is
> > (apparently) proprietary and long dead. One guy was complaining 
> that
> > GAWK (aka, GPL) still doesn't 100% equal TAWK features despite 
> being
> > 20 years newer. Sound familiar? Old habits die hard.
> >
> > (In hindsight, it's best to not write proprietary, non-standard,
> > unportable software at all, if you have a choice. Although nothing
> > lasts forever, not even standards, it does certainly help to try 
> to be
> > portable/cross-platform from the start.)
> >
> > 
>
-
-
> > 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
> >
> 
>
-
-
> 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
> 


**
>From Dale Sterner - MS organic chemistry
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jo00975a052
***


Police Urge Americans to Carry This With Them at All Times
The Observer
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/58d91a79e59d71a797f86st03duc

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Eric Auer]

Hi Rugxulo,

> If you already have the original gold standard of DOSes, i.e. MS-DOS
> (which was widely tested and hugely popular, by far the most
> ubiquitous DOS), then you don't urgently "need" any other DOS
> clone at all all, period.

Being the most widely used does not equal being the best.

For example Linux is great for certain use cases and this
is not changed by "but millions already have Windows" as
an argument to use Windows instead for those use cases...

Similarily, FreeDOS gives you a lot of DOS, a lot newer
than the early 1990s Microsoft version, often in a much
smaller package both in terms of disk space and in terms
of the amount of RAM needed. And newer drivers :-)

On the other hand, all DOS clones have to be extremely
similar to MS DOS when it comes to supporting software
apps for DOS. Because if you first have to port your
XYZ app for Linux to "the cool new OS ABC" which also
behaves a bit like DOS, then most users would simply
use XYZ directly in Linux and not care about DOS. But
as FreeDOS and other clones basically run ALL the good
old software for DOS, clones are clearly attractive.

Note that if you want to use more than 1 core of your
CPU or more than 4 GB of RAM, then DOS is not for you.

A multi tasking 64 bit OS will make you more happy then
and nobody complains about a few GB of disk space there.

A reason to use FreeDOS in spite of already having MS DOS:

Your new hardware has bad support from MS DOS and you want
to have more RAM free and a few new drivers. Of course you
are free to achieve that by MIXING the best files from both
versions of DOS, as you already owned MS DOS in my example.

Cheers, Eric



--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 7:20 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
>
> I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or "no advantage to MS DOS".

If you already have the original gold standard of DOSes, i.e. MS-DOS
(which was widely tested and hugely popular, by far the most
ubiquitous DOS), then you don't urgently "need" any other DOS clone at
all, period.

Various DOS clones exist, and they all have minor advantages, but
overall they work the same (no extra APIs offered, no utilizing newer
advanced cpu features). For common DOS software (and loadable
drivers), they all behave effectively the same (more or less) on any
decent DOS kernel.

Reasons not to use MS-DOS? It's unsupported and proprietary and harder to find.
Reasons not to use FreeDOS? You just want to run the exact same
software that already runs perfectly on your current MS-DOS install.

Heck, apparently there are still people using TAWK, which is
(apparently) proprietary and long dead. One guy was complaining that
GAWK (aka, GPL) still doesn't 100% equal TAWK features despite being
20 years newer. Sound familiar? Old habits die hard.

(In hindsight, it's best to not write proprietary, non-standard,
unportable software at all, if you have a choice. Although nothing
lasts forever, not even standards, it does certainly help to try to be
portable/cross-platform from the start.)

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Ira Minor]

If you already have Windows 98 SE, you have DOS 7.1. I prefer it to FreeDOS
because of better documentation.

Ira

irami...@gmail.com  805-212-0588

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 8:26 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Eric.
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
>   Original Message
> From: Eric Auer
> Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:21 PM
> To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
> Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
> Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
>
>
> A backup on the same disk but different partitions
> does not really help you if things go really wrong,
> but as you say, data loss would be no real problem
> for you... You should probably backup at least the
> DOS SCSI drivers though ;-) Jerome also mentioned
> the drivers as being the most backup worthy files.
>
> As Jerome wrote, you can simply install to C:\FDOS
> and leave most of the rest of C: and D: unharmed.
> Outside the FDOS directory, only the config files
> (autoexec / config / fdconfig / similar) and boot
> files (kernel, maybe command) in the root directory
> of C:\ and the boot sector should get overwritten,
> not much else to worry about UNLESS you format or
> fdisk... In which case everything would be gone.
>
> As you already have some DOS (here: MS DOS) on the
> PC, I agree with Jerome that "not booted update" is
> worth a trying for a "smoother" change to FreeDOS.
>
> I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or
> "no advantage to MS DOS". Examples of advantages:
>
> Several drivers are smaller in RAM compared to MS
> DOS versions, FreeDOS supports FAT32 and LBA :-)
>
> In particular, this means that you can (if your
> BIOS is not too old) harddisks up to 2 TB size
> and partitions of many GB size without problems.
>
> Regards, Eric
>
> > My internal hard drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The entire
> > contents of the C:\DOS directory is backed up on drive D. I also have
> > an MS-DOS boot disk that includes my current autoexec.bat and
> > config.sys files.
>
>
> 
> --
> 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
>
> 
> --
> 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
>
--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Eric Auer]

A backup on the same disk but different partitions
does not really help you if things go really wrong,
but as you say, data loss would be no real problem
for you... You should probably backup at least the
DOS SCSI drivers though ;-) Jerome also mentioned
the drivers as being the most backup worthy files.

As Jerome wrote, you can simply install to C:\FDOS
and leave most of the rest of C: and D: unharmed.
Outside the FDOS directory, only the config files
(autoexec / config / fdconfig / similar) and boot
files (kernel, maybe command) in the root directory
of C:\ and the boot sector should get overwritten,
not much else to worry about UNLESS you format or
fdisk... In which case everything would be gone.

As you already have some DOS (here: MS DOS) on the
PC, I agree with Jerome that "not booted update" is
worth a trying for a "smoother" change to FreeDOS.

I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or
"no advantage to MS DOS". Examples of advantages:

Several drivers are smaller in RAM compared to MS
DOS versions, FreeDOS supports FAT32 and LBA :-)

In particular, this means that you can (if your
BIOS is not too old) harddisks up to 2 TB size
and partitions of many GB size without problems.

Regards, Eric

> My internal hard drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The entire
> contents of the C:\DOS directory is backed up on drive D. I also have
> an MS-DOS boot disk that includes my current autoexec.bat and
> config.sys files.


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

Don't need a network card with a dial-up modem. As for packet driver, Arachne 
comes with some. I am definately willing to try other browsers.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: Rugxulo
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:44 PM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 6:36 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I 
> use Laplink.

Okay, but that's only the kernel (and boot sector to load it), not all
of the other files. Any single floppy could handle that minimal
"install" for you.

> I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting Arachne online. It 
> reports
> low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker several times.

Unlikely to help much by itself, but who knows.

Not to discourage use of Arachne by any means, but there are other web
browsers as well, e.g. Links2 (which is 386+ DPMI, thus less stingy
about memory):

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/

(grab links-2.14.exe and links.crt)

But, again, that assumes a working packet driver and supported network
card. So you do actually have one??

--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

Also, I'm curious. The 486 is not my main computer. It is a hobby project. 
While I would be disappointed is anything was lost in the transition, it 
wouldn't be the end of the world.
I'm taking a break now. Please don't be offended if you post something and I 
don't respond immediately. I will let you all know how this works out.
Dennis

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: Rugxulo
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:17 PM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently‎ has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only 
> OS.
> My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The 
> SCSI
> drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of 
> MSCDEX.EXE.

If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the
original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version
of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install
FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs,
sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up
several times!

It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so
that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention
if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might
make backing up files a lot easier.

If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable
floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel
with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have
MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at
all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much
more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike
MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large
drives.)

You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want
to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you:

http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/

--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/24/2017 4:36 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote:
> I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I 
> use Laplink. I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting 
> Arachne online. It reports low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker 
> several times.
Using FAT32 does not help you in seeing drives and files on another 
computer, either via laplink or by other means. This is either handled 
by the program itself (as in the case of Laplink) or it is matter of the 
network redirector being used...

As for being low on memory, the main source of your problems are likely 
being the use of the SCSI/ASPI drivers as you mentioned in a previous 
post. Those things are/were huge in terms of DOS in general. FreeDOS 
won't give you here much of an advantage over any other DOS...

Ralf

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I use 
Laplink. I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting Arachne 
online. It reports low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker several times.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: Rugxulo
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:17 PM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently‎ has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only 
> OS.
> My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The 
> SCSI
> drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of 
> MSCDEX.EXE.

If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the
original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version
of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install
FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs,
sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up
several times!

It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so
that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention
if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might
make backing up files a lot easier.

If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable
floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel
with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have
MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at
all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much
more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike
MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large
drives.)

You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want
to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you:

http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/

--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton  wrote:
>
> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently‎ has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only 
> OS.
> My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The 
> SCSI
> drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of 
> MSCDEX.EXE.

If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the
original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version
of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install
FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs,
sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up
several times!

It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so
that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention
if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might
make backing up files a lot easier.

If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable
floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel
with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have
MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at
all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much
more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike
MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large
drives.)

You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want
to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you:

http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

My internal hard drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The entire contents 
of the C:\DOS directory is backed up on drive D. I also have an MS-DOS boot 
disk that includes my current autoexec.bat and config.sys files.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: Jerome Shidel
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:05 PM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk



> On Mar 24, 2017, at 6:40 PM, Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Dennis,
> 
>> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently‎ has MS-DOS 6.22 as
>> its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my
>> installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice
>> FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE.
> 
> Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI
> and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get
> used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines
> from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config
> of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys
> MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax
> for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS.

I'd advise just plugging in his needed lines into the new configuration files. 
But, what ever is easiest.

> 
> Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to
> tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing
> C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs

If his old MS-DOS install is not under the FDOS\ directory (unless changed in 
advanced mode), it will just ignore it. That goes for other directories as 
well. If the existing target directory (Like FDOS\) for the OS already exists, 
it will be backed up and the cleaned out. 

> Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all
> files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can
> use the backups to repair the damage :-)

Yes, always backup! 

Jerome

--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Jerome Shidel]

> On Mar 24, 2017, at 6:40 PM, Eric Auer  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi Dennis,
> 
>> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently‎ has MS-DOS 6.22 as
>> its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my
>> installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice
>> FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE.
> 
> Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI
> and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get
> used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines
> from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config
> of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys
> MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax
> for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS.

I'd advise just plugging in his needed lines into the new configuration files. 
But, what ever is easiest.

> 
> Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to
> tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing
> C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs

If his old MS-DOS install is not under the FDOS\ directory (unless changed in 
advanced mode), it will just ignore it. That goes for other directories as 
well. If the existing target directory (Like FDOS\) for the OS already exists, 
it will be backed up and the cleaned out. 

> Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all
> files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can
> use the backups to repair the damage :-)

Yes, always backup! 

Jerome

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

Check!

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: Eric Auer
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 5:41 PM
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk


Hi Dennis,

> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently‎ has MS-DOS 6.22 as
> its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my
> installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice
> FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE.

Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI
and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get
used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines
from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config
of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys
MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax
for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS.

Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to
tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing
C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs.

Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all
files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can
use the backups to repair the damage :-)

Regards, Eric



--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Eric Auer]

Hi Dennis,

> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently‎ has MS-DOS 6.22 as
> its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my
> installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice
> FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE.

Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI
and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get
used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines
from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config
of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys
MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax
for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS.

Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to
tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing
C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs.

Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all
files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can
use the backups to repair the damage :-)

Regards, Eric



--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Eric Auer]

Hi Dennis,

> I downloaded and installed WinImage 9.0 on my win98 computer. It has a
> floppy drive. I successfully wrote the img file to a floppy.
> Another issue occurred to me. My cd-rom drive is a SCSI external type.

That might be a problem, depending on your SCSI controller
and whether it has good BIOS support etc etc. I assume you
refer to the CD-ROM of the PC where you want to install DOS?

By the way, does that PC also have another operating system?
Do you want to replace that by DOS? Or install both side by
side as "dual boot"? The latter requires special steps, the
former can mean that current disk contents get overwritten.

> The new boot floppy has an fdconfig.sys and an autoexec‎.bat file. I'm 
> thinking 
> I need to add lines to both to recognize the SCSI drive when it boots.

If you have good DOS drivers for the drive and know how to
configure them, then you can do that. If you plan to install
DOS on a computer where you already have or can install some
operating system with easy internet, then I would recommend
another method: Copy the ISO file of FreeDOS to a FAT drive
on the PC where you want to install DOS and then "mount" it
as if it would be the CD of FreeDOS :-) If the boot floppy
has no automatic support for that, then I am sure that some
extra explanation of this trick could be given by Rugxulo or
Jerome, with examples of what to put where in fdconfig and
autoexec on the boot floppy :-)

The idea is that you need no hardware specific drivers at all
to open the ISO if you already have it on the future DOS PC,
so you avoid all worries about SCSI and CDROM drivers then.

You still do need that special ISO driver, of course, but as
that is not specific to certain hardware, it is easy to use.

Cheers, Eric



--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

  I downloaded and installed WinImage 9.0 on my win98 computer. It has a floppy drive. I successfully wrote the img file to a floppy.Another issue occurred to me. My cd-rom drive is a SCSI external type.The new boot floppy has an fdconfig.sys and an autoexec‎.bat file. I'm thinking I need to add lines to both to recognize the SCSI drive when it boots.Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.From: Ralf QuintSent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:15 PMTo: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
  

  
  
On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton
  wrote:


  I
was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space
message. 

That is to be expected.

A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY
sector on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes
the BPB-BIOS Paramter Block),  14 sectors for the root directory and
18 sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a
formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an
unformatted disk).

To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that
writes that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a
single file as you have tried.

On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the
"dd" command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you
have another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more
than two decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which
also does works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or
CD-ROMs...

Ralf
  

	

		Virus-free. www.avast.com
		
	




--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/23/2017 9:47 PM, Gregg Eshelman wrote:
It is possible to format a floppy a bit over size. Most drives will 
accommodate 2 to 4 extra tracks. Depending on the drive and the 
controller it's possible to alter the number of sectors per track, but 
all tracks must have the same number of sectors. Typically, altering 
the number of sectors renders the format non-bootable.


Schenk & Horn CopyStar is one such program. It's old, originally from 
1994, but it's known to work on Windows 2000, Server 2003 and older. 
I've not tried it on XP and later. Probably not compatible with 64 bit 
Windows. http://www.programfiles.com/Default.asp?LinkId=13681


Microsoft used an over-capacity format they called DMF. For programs 
(like Windows 95) where the first disk had to be bootable it was 
standard 1.44M.


IBM used a different over-capacity format for OS/2's install disks, 
but nothing included with OS/2 could write data to the disks, despite 
the inclusion of a utility to create blank disks with that format. 
(The largest all floppy install I ever did was OS/2 Warp 3.0, followed 
by a couple of large updates.)
Sorry, but all that is irrelevant to the problem at hand. He tried to 
copy an image file, that includes the file system as a single file onto 
a floppy disk that already contained a file system. He needed to use a 
program that write that image file sector by sector onto a floppy disk. 
And that way it will fit perfectly, no overformatting needed...


If only the entire OEM computer industry had wholeheartedly adopted 
the 2.88M floppy, instead of only IBM and Compaq sorta halfway 
supporting it. "Hey look! We're making 2.88M floppy drives standard on 
ALL our computers! How about YOU, Hewlett Packard, Packard Bell, 
Gateway 2000... *Apple*? You wanna fall behind us? Keep using that 
obsolete 1.44M!"
The problem with the general adaptation of 2.88MB floppy disks was that 
those drives did have compatibility issues with reliably reading and 
more so, WRITING 1.44MB disks...


Ralf


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

  ThanksSent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.From: Ralf QuintSent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:15 PMTo: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
  

  
  
On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton
  wrote:


  I
was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space
message. 

That is to be expected.

A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY
sector on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes
the BPB-BIOS Paramter Block),  14 sectors for the root directory and
18 sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a
formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an
unformatted disk).

To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that
writes that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a
single file as you have tried.

On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the
"dd" command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you
have another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more
than two decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which
also does works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or
CD-ROMs...

Ralf
  

	

		Virus-free. www.avast.com
		
	




--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Ralf Quint]

On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton wrote:

I was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space message.

That is to be expected.

A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY sector 
on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes the 
BPB-BIOS Paramter Block),  14 sectors for the root directory and 18 
sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a 
formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an 
unformatted disk).


To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that writes 
that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a single file as 
you have tried.


On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the "dd" 
command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you have 
another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more than two 
decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which also does 
works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or CD-ROMs...


Ralf


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Eric Auer]

Hi Felix and Dennis,

> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip 
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 
> 2847 
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded 
> image 
> would not fit here either.

That is a misunderstanding. The FLOPPY really is 80 tracks, 2 sides,
18 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector: 1474560 bytes is correct.

However, if you want to put a FILE on a floppy, then the maximum
size for the FILE is less, because some space is used by the FAT
filesystem. So 1457664 is the size left for you to put files on.

This is why the boot floppy disk image has to be copied with some
special tools (Linux: dd, DOS: diskcopy, Windows: ..., Mac: ...)
which copy contents, filesystem, boot sector etc. all at once.

This also is why you do not see files IN that single image file
in FD12FLOPPY.zip: You would have to "open" the file as a FAT
filesystem to see the files that you will later see on your disk
after putting the diskimage as a whole on the floppy.

If we would offer the files separately in the ZIP, you would be
able to see and edit them at once, which is good, BUT you would
need a separate tool to install a boot sector to make it bootable,
which is inconvenient, because SYS is only available for DOS and
similar tools for other OS (like makebootfat or sys-freedos.pl
for Linux) would need specific command line options to produce
optimized DOS boot sectors.

Regards, Eric



--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

Thanks. I'll try.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: Jerome Shidel
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:17 AM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk


> On Mar 23, 2017, at 11:56 PM, Felix Miata <mrma...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip 
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 
> 2847 
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded 
> image 
> would not fit here either.

I see where the confusion may be coming from.

After formatting a floppy image using FreeDOS, it states:

1,474,560 bytes total disk space (disk size)
1,456,664 bytes available on disk (free clusters)

It would appear that the number 1457664 is the usable empty free space on the 
disk once it has been low level formatted and then formatted with the standard 
DOS file system. So, you probably do have a correct sized floppy diskette. 
However, you will need to use the appropriate tool to place the floppy image 
file onto the diskette. Other messages in this thread mention programs like 
rawrite & dd. These all work very well for this task.

Jerome 
--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

Thanks. I'll try diskcopy.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: Rugxulo
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:49 AM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Hi,

On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 10:56 PM, Felix Miata <mrma...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 
> 2847
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded 
> image
> would not fit here either.

I downloaded the above (FD12FLOPPY.zip) and two of my own images
(BARE_DOS and MetaDOS). All of them have the same size (1474560). A
simple "file *.img" tells me that they all have 2880 sectors. I've
written a few real floppies in recent years with some of these and had
no obvious problems.

The obvious tool to use, among a million others variations, would be DISKCOPY:

http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/diskcopy.htm

(Here's some alternatives.)

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35297505/

> -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
> words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

So, just for completeness, (direct or indirect) links to a bunch of
(Free)DOS floppy images are found below here:

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35557316/

Keep in mind that a 1.44 MB floppy doesn't hold many files (e.g. a
full FD "BASE" won't fit) and isn't actively used by most users
anymore (even in FreeDOS circles). Heck, floppies aren't even made
anymore, and most modern x86 machines lack the drives (although you
can probably still buy a USB floppy drive like I did). Thus it's
somewhat ignored in favor of newer, more popular media. So there is no
"full" install via floppy, thus you must figure things out manually
(for the most part). Networking (using a working packet driver) helps
tremendously. Otherwise you're stuck with copying manually
(sneakernet).

--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

  I was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space message. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.From: perditi...@gmail.comSent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 11:15 PMTo: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a diskOn Mar 23, 2017 9:32 PM, "Dennis Fenton" <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for...
To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
1.44 floppyWhat program are you using to write the image to your floppy?   Boot images cannot be copied using copy, they must be written with a program like rawwrite or dd.  Does it give an explicit error code or just a message about insufficient space?Thank you,Jeremy


--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

Exactly

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: Felix Miata
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:56 PM
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip 
"boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847 
512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded 
image 
would not fit here either.
-- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Jerome Shidel]

> On Mar 23, 2017, at 11:56 PM, Felix Miata  wrote:
> 
> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip 
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 
> 2847 
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded 
> image 
> would not fit here either.

I see where the confusion may be coming from.

After formatting a floppy image using FreeDOS, it states:

1,474,560 bytes total disk space (disk size)
1,456,664 bytes available on disk (free clusters)

It would appear that the number 1457664 is the usable empty free space on the 
disk once it has been low level formatted and then formatted with the standard 
DOS file system. So, you probably do have a correct sized floppy diskette. 
However, you will need to use the appropriate tool to place the floppy image 
file onto the diskette. Other messages in this thread mention programs like 
rawrite & dd. These all work very well for this task.

Jerome 
--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Jerome Shidel]

A 1.44MB 3.5” DS HD floppy disk is 1,474,560 bytes when formatted. (2MB 
unformatted)

It used 512 byte sectors, 18 sectors per track, 80 tracks per side and is/was a 
two sided media.

512 * 18 * 80 * 2 = 1474560 / 1024 = 1.44MB floppy.

More information on this can be found at 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floppy_disk_formats

Also, on Mac, Unix and Linux dd will write the disk image fine with a command 
like:

sudo dd if=FD12FLOPPY.img of=/dev/fd0

(or similar)

As a side note, PC-DOS 7 used oddly formatted diskettes for its install media. 
These provided a capacity lager than 1.44MB on its 3.5” install media. This was 
good to reduce the number of diskettes required. But, it made it more difficult 
to clone the original floppy disks for backup purposes. Also, it was not 100% 
compatible with all floppy drives and could cause other headaches as well.

Jerome
--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 10:56 PM, Felix Miata  wrote:
>
> I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip
> "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 
> 2847
> 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded 
> image
> would not fit here either.

I downloaded the above (FD12FLOPPY.zip) and two of my own images
(BARE_DOS and MetaDOS). All of them have the same size (1474560). A
simple "file *.img" tells me that they all have 2880 sectors. I've
written a few real floppies in recent years with some of these and had
no obvious problems.

The obvious tool to use, among a million others variations, would be DISKCOPY:

http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/diskcopy.htm

(Here's some alternatives.)

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35297505/

> -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
> words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

So, just for completeness, (direct or indirect) links to a bunch of
(Free)DOS floppy images are found below here:

https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35557316/

Keep in mind that a 1.44 MB floppy doesn't hold many files (e.g. a
full FD "BASE" won't fit) and isn't actively used by most users
anymore (even in FreeDOS circles). Heck, floppies aren't even made
anymore, and most modern x86 machines lack the drives (although you
can probably still buy a USB floppy drive like I did). Thus it's
somewhat ignored in favor of newer, more popular media. So there is no
"full" install via floppy, thus you must figure things out manually
(for the most part). Networking (using a working packet driver) helps
tremendously. Otherwise you're stuck with copying manually
(sneakernet).

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Gregg Eshelman]

It is possible to format a floppy a bit over size. Most drives will accommodate 
2 to 4 extra tracks. Depending on the drive and the controller it's possible to 
alter the number of sectors per track, but all tracks must have the same number 
of sectors. Typically, altering the number of sectors renders the format 
non-bootable.

Schenk & Horn CopyStar is one such program. It's old, originally from 1994, but 
it's known to work on Windows 2000, Server 2003 and older. I've not tried it on 
XP and later. Probably not compatible with 64 bit Windows. 
http://www.programfiles.com/Default.asp?LinkId=13681

Microsoft used an over-capacity format they called DMF. For programs (like 
Windows 95) where the first disk had to be bootable it was standard 1.44M.
IBM used a different over-capacity format for OS/2's install disks, but nothing 
included with OS/2 could write data to the disks, despite the inclusion of a 
utility to create blank disks with that format. (The largest all floppy install 
I ever did was OS/2 Warp 3.0, followed by a couple of large updates.)

If only the entire OEM computer industry had wholeheartedly adopted the 2.88M 
floppy, instead of only IBM and Compaq sorta halfway supporting it. "Hey look! 
We're making 2.88M floppy drives standard on ALL our computers! How about YOU, 
Hewlett Packard, Packard Bell, Gateway 2000... *Apple*? You wanna fall behind 
us? Keep using that obsolete 1.44M!"

  From: Felix Miata <mrma...@earthlink.net>
 To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net 
 Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 9:57 PM
 Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
   
I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip 
"boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847 
512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded 
image 
would not fit here either.
-- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

   --
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[perditionc]

On Mar 23, 2017 9:32 PM, "Dennis Fenton"  wrote:

After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
...
To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
1.44 floppy.
...


What program are you using to write the image to your floppy?   Boot images
cannot be copied using copy, they must be written with a program like
rawwrite or dd.  Does it give an explicit error code or just a message
about insufficient space?

Thank you,
Jeremy
--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Felix Miata]

I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip 
"boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847 
512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded 
image 
would not fit here either.
-- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

   Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

No bad sectors. I tried two different freshly formatted disks and ran scandisk 
on them just to be sure.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: Felix Miata
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:30 PM
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

Dennis Fenton composed on 2017-03-23 20:32 (UTC-0500):

> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
> SCSI CD drive.
> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
> 1.44 floppy.

How much "too big"? Is it because your floppy has bad sectors. Floppies without 
bad sectors are rather uncommon around here. For this reason I try to avoid 
image writes, which demand all sectors in the media's spec be usable, and a 
format that worked once may well be that last the media will accept without 
error.

> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
> Do you have a fix for this?-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

--
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

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Felix Miata]

Dennis Fenton composed on 2017-03-23 20:32 (UTC-0500):

> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
> SCSI CD drive.
> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
> 1.44 floppy.

How much "too big"? Is it because your floppy has bad sectors. Floppies without 
bad sectors are rather uncommon around here. For this reason I try to avoid 
image writes, which demand all sectors in the media's spec be usable, and a 
format that worked once may well be that last the media will accept without 
error.

> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
> Do you have a fix for this?-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

--
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

Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy img. 
It doesn't fit!
So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a 
dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS.

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.
  Original Message  
From: dmccunney
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 9:26 PM
To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for
> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with.
> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot
> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external
> SCSI CD drive.
> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a
> 1.44 floppy.

The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be
installed on a CDROM.

If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from
floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to
boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD
you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See
the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 »"

See http://www.freedos.org/download/

> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an
> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it
> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image?
> Do you have a fix for this?

The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions
on the download page.
__
Dennis

--
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

--
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