We use FreeDOS on laptops for an easy software refresh procedure.
Hard drive is 2 primary partitions, 15 and 5 GB for example, with XP
on big one, FreeDOS on small one.
With Norton's scriptable gdisk32 on XP side, we can unhide and make
active the FreeDOS partition, run ghost from the FreeDOS partition to
either make a partition ghost image from the Windows partition or
reload from an image to the XP side. With gdisk we then make the XP
partition active and reboot.
PROBLEM: everything works OK with FreeDOS kernel 1.1.34 (Build
2034). Boot with floppy and sys a: c: to the small partition.
That's all we use, just the kernel and command.com.
But with kernel 1.1.35w Build 2035w-unstable from the 1440 ODIN
distribution, everything works with a laptop *if and only if* there
is a floppy drive present. If there is a floppy drive either in a
bay or connected via USB, then the FreeDOS partition boots normally.
However, if that floppy drive is missing, then we consistently get
the message, after FreeDOS starts to load:
"Error in the DJ mechanism. IO error: cyclinder > 1023. Bad
or missing Command Interpreter. Enter the full shell command line:
command.com /P /E:256."
At first I thought maybe there is something wrong in the MBR. Used
WinHex to look at a working MBR and non-working MBR, they are
identical. That makes sense, nothing has been changed in the 16 byte
partition entries.
Then thought it was the boot sector for the FreeDOS partition.
After looking at a working and non-working boot sector, they seem
identical except for the name of FreeDOS itself. And FreeDOS seems
to start loading, but without a floppy drive, cannot find (?)
command.com. Command.com is clearly not missing bad. Just reboot
with a floppy drive present and FreeDOS fully boots.
If I restore the FreeDOS partition from a ghost image from a working
machine, which was made on a laptop which always has both an optical
drive and a floppy, then the newer laptop again works, with or
without a floppy drive.
QUESTIONS:
What distribution had kernel 1.1.34 on it?
Is that distribution still available?
Any suggestions about what I may be doing wrong. I'm not a DOS
expert by any means.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Robert
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