Hi Marcos, Another idea: You can connect compact flash cards with a purely mechanical adapter to IDE harddisk controllers. Might give better performance and compatibility than a scheme based on USB sticks :-). Initial setup might be slightly tricky, but the same tricks as for USB sticks will help you to install DOS on a CF card. Prices will also be okay as CF are big and simple compared to the miniature SD variant memory cards that people use now.
> I built and support a DataPerfect database with 8 computers > networked through MS-Client. I hope you also have good and regular backups :-) > Since this network is completely dedicated to the database (i.e., > it needs not run any other software), I decided to get rid of the > hard disks in all client computers. They now boot from a floppy... How often do the computers boot? You can keep the floppy contents small and fetch the rest from the network. You can also load LBACACHE FLOP with TICKLE to get efficient cached floppy reads with track read-ahead early at boot. > - ...read the instructions on creating a DOS bootable USB "disk" With newer BIOSes, this will usually work well. Avoid using EMM386 or configure UMB exclusion areas carefully, as USB and network access can interfere with DOS UMB memory. Note that writing to USB sticks via BIOS is often slow, but as you do not intend to write the boot medium at all as far as I understand, that should not be a problem. You might try to use FDSHIELD to write protect disks, but configurability is limited and some software has problems with unexpected inability to write to a disk... > - I suppose it is also possible to boot from a CD-ROM. Booting from CD or DVD will be faster and will fit more data than booting from floppy, but a CD/DVD drive is still a mechanical device. How long it will last also depends on whether you keep fetching files from CD/DVD from time to time or whether you only access the CD/DVD during the boot process and copy all data to a ramdisk then. Usually CD/DVD boots well with either a floppy image (1.44 or 2.88 MB common) or ISOLINUX plus MEMDISK for other sizes. The latter also allows compressed images, plus you can use ELTORITO,SYS to access the non-boot part of the CD/DVD, giving you much space for tools. > - Members of our list have been discussing "net booting" The classical "diskless" boot is of course from network via PXE, but if you want to use the network for DOS apps after booting, there can be a conflict between network boot and network usage... You say that you use MSCLIENT so it is likely that you run into this problem. On the other hand, you usually boot via PXELINUX and MEMDISK so all PXE boot network access is only during boot. > A major concern in this network is reliability, as the database > is used by doctors and nurses 12 hours a day to keep track of > some 30,000 patients. Indeed. And you might want to write-protect the boot medium. Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
