Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with FreeDOS. Mounted 
that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS install image and installed 
FreeDOS to the image copied from the DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that 
image back to the DOM. "Missing Operating System".
 

On Friday, January 5, 2018, 8:05:18 PM MST, Rugxulo  
wrote: 

Or why don't you install FreeDOS under VM to raw disk image, and then
dd it to the physical hard drive while under Linux. Then it should
boot correctly, right?  --
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Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 5:13 PM, E. Auer  wrote:
>
> Possible explanation: The FreeDOS USB boot thing has a harddisk-
> style bootable disk image and the BIOS of your computer has some
> compatibility issue with the drive-renumbering caused by booting
> from USB and/or from using a "harddisk" boot image.

FreeDOS has at least three "fdisk" programs, so maybe FD fdisk [sic]
can't do it, but maybe try the others (e.g. xfdisk or spfdisk):

* https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/xfdisk/
* https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/spfdisk/

Actually, what version of FD fdisk are you using? IIRC, it wasn't
quite finalized, so there's some confusion between 1.2 and 1.3 series.
So maybe try whatever other version you're not already using:

* https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/fdisk/

Or would maybe Ranish Partition Manager work??

* http://www.ranish.com/part/
* https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/ranish/

> A possible solution would be to use a FreeDOS boot FLOPPY or floppy image.

I did already suggest using floppy to him, but he didn't seem to
acknowledge or want it. Dunno.

> As you are able to use the MS DOS one, you will be able to use a
> FreeDOS one as well :-) As far as I can tell, you do not need a
> large install, just the "usual DOS stuff", so you can use some
> floppy distro like Ruffidea or Brezel or similar.

RUFFIDEA is too old, similarly BARE_DOS (although I still have them
available). I don't know offhand where Brezel is. And most other such
floppy images are all old, too (e.g. ODIN, Balder, Joris-8086, etc).
But 

> Maybe the other freedos-user fans can suggest a nice image :-)

This is a recent effort by me and meant to be a minimal (but easy and
convenient) starting point. By default, it comes as a 1.44 MB 3.5"
floppy .img (roughly only half filled) with a few essentials (FD
fdisk, format, sys).

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/metados/

The idea is that you can modify it under modern VM (e.g. VBox or QEMU)
before writing it to physical floppy, if needed. GNU Mtools (under
Linux or similar) would also allow that, among various other methods
(e.g. mount loopback or whatever).

>> I found an "MS-DOS 7.1" boot floppy image and *this one* had no
>> problems booting the S30 with a USB floppy drive, wiping the DOM and
>> creating a fresh partition with FDISK, then rebooting and using
>> format c: /s
>> NOW it's booted to a DOS prompt from the DOM.

Win7 still has the ability to "make system floppy", which is a
slimmed-down, emergency, minimal MS-DOS image. RUFUS can use this, if
found. However, allegedly Win10 doesn't have that anymore. IIRC, in
recent years MSDN used to still sell full MS-DOS 6.x, but I'm not sure
anymore. (And there are still other DOSes still available online, too,
e.g. DR-DOS or ROM DOS.)

>> So I'll try FreeDOS again..
>> Nope. Same as before. Screen full of No Fixed disks present, followed
>> by a prompt to repartition D:, but it cannot touch it.
>> Does the Lite USB install make a log file to diagnose why it's not
>> working?

I suggest you try a different FDISK program. For that matter, you
could also maybe use GParted or cfdisk or whatever on Linux (or BSD or
...) to do it. Especially since you imply that Linux works fully on
that type of machine.

You may also need this:

* 
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/sys/sys-freedos-linux/

Or "maybe" this will help??

* http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/

Or why don't you install FreeDOS under VM to raw disk image, and then
dd it to the physical hard drive while under Linux. Then it should
boot correctly, right?

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Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[E. Auer]

Possible explanation: The FreeDOS USB boot thing has a harddisk-
style bootable disk image and the BIOS of your computer has some
compatibility issue with the drive-renumbering caused by booting
from USB and/or from using a "harddisk" boot image. A possible
solution would be to use a FreeDOS boot FLOPPY or floppy image.
As you are able to use the MS DOS one, you will be able to use a
FreeDOS one as well :-) As far as I can tell, you do not need a
large install, just the "usual DOS stuff", so you can use some
floppy distro like Ruffidea or Brezel or similar. You could even
use the always-fresh automated build floppy images, but those
will have almost no tools and drivers included: They simply are
provided for having the freshest kernel online in bootable form.

Maybe the other freedos-user fans can suggest a nice image :-)

Regards, Eric


I found an "MS-DOS 7.1" boot floppy image and *this one* had no
problems booting the S30 with a USB floppy drive, wiping the DOM and
creating a fresh partition with FDISK, then rebooting and using
format c: /s
NOW it's booted to a DOS prompt from the DOM.



So I'll try FreeDOS again..
Nope. Same as before. Screen full of No Fixed disks present, followed
by a prompt to repartition D:, but it cannot touch it.
Does the Lite USB install make a log file to diagnose why it's not 
working?




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Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Dale E Sterner]

If you want to use CF chips instead of a harddrive.
I'd recommend Komputerbay chips sold on Amazon.
They aren't marked internally as removable like most.
Currently I'm using 32 gig to run dos. Hard to find anything
smaller now. You can run win 7 on them if you want.

cheers
DS




On Thu, 4 Jan 2018 21:47:55 + (UTC) Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user
 writes:
> Here's the FreeDOS image. Volume label is FREEDOS2012. Will mount in 
> Quemu as a RAW image. Can't relocate the site I downloaded it 
> from.https://anonfile.com/J8sau4d4bc/FreeDOS.rar
> 
> The storage is an IDE Flash Disk, AKA Disk On Module. It has a 44 
> pin female header connector, same electrical interface as a 2.5" IDE 
> hard drive. They're available dirt cheap in sizes from 64 megabytes 
> to 2 gigabytes, not so cheap in 4 and 8 gigabytes. They were 
> (possibly still are) made by around a dozen different companies, or 
> that many put their logos on them. They come in three form factors. 
> Bare PCB with right angle connector. Bare PCB with connector edge 
> mounted. Plastic enclosed with connector on one edge. The latter two 
> are easy to use as laptop hard drive replacements with a male/male 
> pin adapter. *However*, the chips used on many of these DOM's are 
> not too durable. They may not withstand the heavy write use of 
> virtual memory or swap files. They're meant for embedded systems 
> with an OS that does little or no writing to the storage.
>   
> I'd install an actual hard drive if there was enough room inside the 
> thin client. 
> 
>  DOS or FreeDOS, I just want to get the thing to boot off the IDE 
> flash module and run with as much EMS memory as it can. The software 
> I need to run is made to run on anything with DOS, and EMS, and a 
> serial port, all the way back to the 5150 IBM PC. Don't need any 
> XMS, it loads the G-Code files into EMS, if available. Otherwise it 
> uses whatever low memory is available and files too large to fit 
> must be cut up with the spliiter/linker utility.
>  Hopefully the WYSE Sx0 series thin client's memory map isn't all 
> fragmented up like circa 1995 and newer laptops. They don't have a 
> large enough contiguous RAM space to put the 64K EMS paging window. 
> What would be very nice is to be able to hack the BIOS to either 
> totally remove its tricks with the IDE port, or add an option to 
> switch it between original and normal operation.
> 
> If this can be made to work I'll write up a how-to so other PLM2000 
> CNC mill owners can setup a tiny controller box and ditch the big 
> PC. The control computer does zero computing of things like curves. 
> It just sends G-Code to the mill and monitors return communications 
> for encoder counts, limit switch activation and stop messages from 
> exceeding torque limits. The servo controller in the mill does the 
> heavy lifting.
> 
> On Thursday, January 4, 2018, 12:26:17 PM MST, Robert Riebisch 
>  wrote:  
>  
>  Hi Gregg,
> 
> > Boot from USB and it's there. I have a FreeDOS image for a 64 
> megabyte
> > module, which someone French setup for these thin clients. It will 
> boot
> > just fine, but in French. Somehow it works around or ignores it 
> hiding
> > or disabling the IDE controller.
> 
> 1) Where did you get the FreeDOS image?
> 2) Can you make it available to us (Dropbox link?), so we can have a 
> look?
> 3) What do you mean by saying "module"? Is it a CF card connected to 
> the
> IDE connector?
> 
> > Looks like I may have to use FreeDOS if there's no way to get past 
> that
> > with some MS-DOS version. But if there's some special extra
> > configuration required for getting FreeDOS to work, I've no idea 
> what it is.
> 
> 1) Why are you keen on MS-DOS?
> 2) What's wrong with FreeDOS?
> 
> Robert Riebisch


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


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