Re: [Freedos-user] game compatibility CD/DVD drivers: comparing UDVD2 to OAKCDROM and DOSBOX

[Ralf Quint]

On 6/8/2021 9:18 AM, Jim Hall wrote:

This is an interesting analysis and comparison between Oak
Technology's OAKCDROM (proprietary) and Jack's UDVD2 (free with
sources).

Have you shared this with Jack? I think he would want to see this so
he can improve compatibility in his driver.


Are you sure about this? Doing just that, is what got him all pissed off 
the last time around... :(


Ralf


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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Carsten Strotmann]

Hi Andrew,

On 9 Jun 2021, at 19:20, Eric Auer wrote:


9) I will also try the FDISK /INFO command for both situations


Enjoy. You could also use XFDISK, which is more user friendly,
but shows fewer details. Note that both also have pretty long
config files which let you (mis-) configure lots of settings.
Maybe some of those have bad defaults in our current package!


XFDISK also can install a boot manager (XFDISK own) on the hard-disk 
that can boot DOS, OS/2, Windows, Linux and other systems. I've used 
XFDISK almost exclusively for older machines for the last 30 years with 
no issues. Give it a try. It has a relatively user friendly text UI.


Greetings

Carsten


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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[ZB]

Maybe let's start with this: how is your HDD partitioned and do you use any
boot-loader utility to load FreeDOS? If so - how its FreeDOS section looks like?
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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Jerome Shidel]

An additional fact to be aware of…

All the normal install media for FreeDOS 1.3-RC4 uses and always installs the 
386 kernel with large file system support. Thats the CD media, USB media and CD 
Boot Floppy. 

However, the alternate x86 installer uses the 8086 kernel. The current version 
of this kernel is compiled without support for large file systems. But 
depending on the detected hardware, either the 8086 or 386 version of the 
kernel may be installed.  The x86 installer is the one used on all of the 
Floppy Diskette Sets (720k, 1.44m and 1.2m) and in the Easter Egg on the 
LiveCD. 

It is probably not relevant in this case. However, it may still be beneficial 
to know which of the two installers is being used. If it is the x86 installer 
it may be helpful to identify which kernel is being installed.

On a side note…

The Easter Egg launches the x86 installer in advanced mode. You could try 
taking your working Win/DOS install and try this installer. Tell it not to 
update your MBR and possibly not to update your system files. However if you 
choose not to update your system files, you will need to do it manually. 
Otherwise, the FreeDOS kernel and shell won’t be configured to boot and you 
will still be attempting to boot your previous OS.

:-)






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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Andrew]

Gotcha thank you guys for the support, I have to work till the end of this
week but will try the recommendations after that. If I get it to work ill
let you know what the problem was. Cheers!

On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 10:22 AM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi!
>
> > Ive been using the freedos wiki as a guide, are there any better
> > docs available? Particularly about MBR and SYS with freedos?
>
> In general, I recommend using /? such as SYS /? and FDISK /?
> as a starting point. Both also come with documentation text.
>
> By the way, you can also use GRUB4DOS as boot manager if you
> think a different boot loader would work better, for example
> regarding the MBR step.
>
> And instead of doing everything by hand, just run the advanced
> mode of the installer :-) Jerome can give advice about that.
>
> Eric
>
> --
Thank you very much,

Andrew Ingram
Fainman Group
Graduate Student, UCSD

Phone: (831)-320-3531
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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Eric Auer]

Hi Andrew,

> 1) The pentium 2 has LBA support, it sees even a 32gb windows 98 partition
> no problem. i486 has no LBA support, so I keep the partition below 2gb. It
> is fine seeing the 2gb DOS partition and booting from it.

It is possible that you end up getting a LBA-only boot sector when
you use the Pentium2 to install on FAT32 and then run the installed
system on the i486. For FAT16, the boot sector can automatically
detect whether LBA is available. In both cases, you can use special
SYS options to force installation/boot in either CHS or LBA style.
You can also use SYS CONFIG to patch flags in the kernel binary to
force either CHS or LBA mode instead of the default autodetection.

While LBA is only necessary when you would have more than 1024 CHS
cylinders afterwards (with or without translation) it CAN be used
for disks of any size. So if the i486 BIOS announces that LBA is
available, but in fact it is buggy, you have a problem. Also, if
SYS sees that the Pentium2 has LBA, it can chose to install a LBA
only boot sector (if you use FAT32) which will then fail after you
put the disk in the 486 if the 486 BIOS supports no LBA etc.

> 2) the wording is read error while reading drive

This does not seem to be one of the error messages in our various
boot sector versions, so I would expect it to be produced by your
MBR, possibly because of some problem with the partitioning.
Otherwise, I would expect our kernel to show at least some other
boot messages before it gets to "error while reading drive", which,
however, is not a common error message for our kernel either. It
could have been "Error reading partition table drive" ... instead?

I do not know enough about your floppy emulator and real floppy
to give advice here. Maybe the emulator is not meant to be used
at the same time as a real floppy? Or you have to change jumpers
or settings on the emulator or the floppy drive?

> 5) I am not sure about the LBA support in the kernel

As said, the default is that the kernel uses LBA when it can,
but you can use SYS CONFIG to patch flags in the kernel binary.

> 6) Yes essentially you boot first into a boot CD, and then instead
> of booting to the CD OS you tell it to boot to hdd it works fine

That is interesting and I remember no similar cases of that, but
maybe half-booting the CD inits some data structures which the
harddisk boot sector took for granted and which are somehow not
properly setup by your BIOS itself. Just guessing there. This
can also include CPU registers and stack location for example.

> 7) I could try partitioning and formatting in DOS first, then
> installing freedos onto that.

My suggestion was the inverse: Use the already proven to work
partitioning and filesystem (formatted drive letter) of your
Windows or MS DOS installation without re-partitioning and
without formatting again. The most basic way of installing
FreeDOS would be to just SYS C: to create a boot sector and
copy the kernel - do not forget to also copy command.com and
some other files as necessary, of course, if you want a full
manual install. A much easier suggestion would be to use the
advanced mode of the installer and simply skip fdisk and format
before proceeding to install the packages using the installer.

> 8) For the MBR, should I use /SMBR after partitioning in DOS then again
> after partitioning in freedos? And then reply with the files?

I suggest that you use /SMBR to collect some evidence about
what is going wrong, at any moment which seems to represent
an interesting state of your system. But please do not send
files to the list. Either quote relevant parts of hexdumps
or upload the files somewhere or send them manually to those
who would like to get a copy. I am happy to receive a few
MBRs and boot sectors myself. No full disk images please.

And as said, you could use /MBR or /BMBR to let FDISK write
a suitable MBR to your disk in case the pre-existing one is
really not okay. But again, I suggest to skip the step of
"partitioning in freedos" if we assume that this causes the
boot problems for you.

> 9) I will also try the FDISK /INFO command for both situations

Enjoy. You could also use XFDISK, which is more user friendly,
but shows fewer details. Note that both also have pretty long
config files which let you (mis-) configure lots of settings.
Maybe some of those have bad defaults in our current package!

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Andrew]

Gotcha, Ill need to learn more about this, perhaps try a manual install. Is
there any up to date guides for a manual installation?

Ive been using the freedos wiki as a guide, are there any better docs
available? Particularly about MBR and SYS with freedos?

On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 9:59 AM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi!
>
> > Perhaps just a simple bootloader would fix the problem? I only know of
> > modern linux ones, perhaps systemd-boot would work from arch?
>
> You can load DOS with many boot loaders including GRUB,
> but that still usually relies on a working boot sector.
>
> If the MBR has a problem (as said, FDISK lets you install
> one of the built-in templates if the one which was on your
> harddisk before has a problem) then it may indeed help to
> install a boot menu. Given that Win98 works for you, you
> could simply keep the MBR from that.
>
> As said, you may have a problem with LBA, SYS or the MBR
> contents. Even if your disk is not large enough to NEED
> LBA, FreeDOS may still PREFER it unless you disable it.
>
> Our boot sectors are organized into "FAT12 or FAT16
> with automatic choice from CHS or LBA", "FAT32 with
> CHS" and "FAT32 with LBA", as well as "OEMBOOT" which
> is a configurable boot sector to boot different brands
> of DOS kernels:
>
> https://github.com/FDOS/kernel/tree/master/boot
>
> As the docs explain, you can use SYS /OEM:FD to use the
> OEM boot sector with FreeDOS settings. You can also use
> various /FORCE options in case automatic choices would
> be wrong, for example between CHS or LBA. See
>
> https://github.com/FDOS/kernel/blob/master/docs/sys.txt
>
> No, you should not compile your own SYS, I am just
> sharing the source code links as a way of explaining
> the features of the SYS binary you already have :-)
>
> It is unusual that you are experiencing systematic boot
> problems with FreeDOS, so it would help to get more fine
> details of the issue in case a relevant bug causes that.
>
> Regards, Eric
>
>
>
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Thank you very much,

Andrew Ingram
Fainman Group
Graduate Student, UCSD

Phone: (831)-320-3531
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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Eric Auer]

Hi!

> Perhaps just a simple bootloader would fix the problem? I only know of
> modern linux ones, perhaps systemd-boot would work from arch?

You can load DOS with many boot loaders including GRUB,
but that still usually relies on a working boot sector.

If the MBR has a problem (as said, FDISK lets you install
one of the built-in templates if the one which was on your
harddisk before has a problem) then it may indeed help to
install a boot menu. Given that Win98 works for you, you
could simply keep the MBR from that.

As said, you may have a problem with LBA, SYS or the MBR
contents. Even if your disk is not large enough to NEED
LBA, FreeDOS may still PREFER it unless you disable it.

Our boot sectors are organized into "FAT12 or FAT16
with automatic choice from CHS or LBA", "FAT32 with
CHS" and "FAT32 with LBA", as well as "OEMBOOT" which
is a configurable boot sector to boot different brands
of DOS kernels:

https://github.com/FDOS/kernel/tree/master/boot

As the docs explain, you can use SYS /OEM:FD to use the
OEM boot sector with FreeDOS settings. You can also use
various /FORCE options in case automatic choices would
be wrong, for example between CHS or LBA. See

https://github.com/FDOS/kernel/blob/master/docs/sys.txt

No, you should not compile your own SYS, I am just
sharing the source code links as a way of explaining
the features of the SYS binary you already have :-)

It is unusual that you are experiencing systematic boot
problems with FreeDOS, so it would help to get more fine
details of the issue in case a relevant bug causes that.

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Andrew]

Perhaps just a simple bootloader would fix the problem? I only know of
modern linux ones, perhaps systemd-boot would work from arch?

On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 9:01 AM ZB  wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 08:40:25AM -0700, Andrew wrote:
>
> > Ive installed different operating systems on the two hdds I have, over 15
> > times in total between them all. Every time DOS and 98 installs fine,
> > freedos always gives the same error. And if I boot from bios to cd to
> hdd,
> > freedos also works, but I cant do that on i486 computer because it doesnt
> > have cd or floppy drive working. So I know it isnt random/ hardware
> > problem, like faulty hard drive. The OSes work fine.
>
> You wrote in your initial post about "warnings" FreeDOS is giving you; so
> it's clear to me: you've got hardware-related problem. System reported it
> has trouble while trying to access your disk. Maybe something wrong with
> your LBA settings (Normal/Large/LBA in BIOS)?
>
> Anyway I would try a different drive/cable pair first
> --
> regards,
> Zbigniew
>
>
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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Andrew]

I dont see how it can he hardware related if both DOS 6 and 98 dont have
the problem, but freedos, all on the same hdd and same computer, using a
2Gb partition which shouldnt have LBA problems. Also two computers have
this same problem. Ive tried multiple drives and multiple cables.

On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 9:01 AM ZB  wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 08:40:25AM -0700, Andrew wrote:
>
> > Ive installed different operating systems on the two hdds I have, over 15
> > times in total between them all. Every time DOS and 98 installs fine,
> > freedos always gives the same error. And if I boot from bios to cd to
> hdd,
> > freedos also works, but I cant do that on i486 computer because it doesnt
> > have cd or floppy drive working. So I know it isnt random/ hardware
> > problem, like faulty hard drive. The OSes work fine.
>
> You wrote in your initial post about "warnings" FreeDOS is giving you; so
> it's clear to me: you've got hardware-related problem. System reported it
> has trouble while trying to access your disk. Maybe something wrong with
> your LBA settings (Normal/Large/LBA in BIOS)?
>
> Anyway I would try a different drive/cable pair first
> --
> regards,
> Zbigniew
>
>
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Thank you very much,

Andrew Ingram
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Graduate Student, UCSD

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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Andrew]

1) The pentium 2 has LBA support, it sees even a 32gb windows 98 partition
no problem. i486 has no LBA support, so I keep the partition below 2gb. It
is fine seeing the 2gb DOS partition and booting from it.

2) the wording is read error while reading drive
This normally shows up when a hdd is broken, but when I install DOS or 98
to the same drive, it boots correctly and no errors apear.

3) I havnt worked enough in getting the floppy working on the i386, i think
it has to do with a nonstandard ide connection. The bios doesnt give an
error when the connector is upside down, and it sees the drive, but then
the gotek gives an error, funny enough. Might have to do some manual
wiring, but I need to do further testing.

4) Gotek is a floppy drive emulator which reads iso files from a usb, and
has ide connection. Works great in pentium 2, and should work even with a
ibm p/s2 apparently.

5) I am not sure about the LBA support in the kernel, that may fix the
problem. I have tried both the floppy and live CD installs, both dont work.
So I suppose whatever SYS file they use is the one I am using.

6) Yes essentially you boot first into a boot CD, and then instead of
booting to the CD OS you tell it to boot to hdd it works fine, and freedos
boots completely on the pentium 2. I think the CD loads part of the OS,
either freedos or 98, which is able to see the freedos hdd partition and
boot files and boot to it. But the bios isnt able to do that directly to
the hdd. Pritty weird problem.

7) I could try partitioning and formatting in DOS first, then installing
freedos onto that. Im not sure if I tried that, so that might be a good
option.

8) For the MBR, should I use /SMBR after partitioning in DOS then again
after partitioning in freedos? And then reply with the files?

9) I will also try the FDISK /INFO command for both situations, Ill see
what it says. Im not as familiar with dos commands, so any commands  I can
run to inspect the problem will be helpful.


On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 8:14 AM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> > 1) Both use IDE connectors, no sata.
> >
> > 2) The error simply says disk read error in the pentium 2. The i486
> simply
> > has a black screen, like it is trying to load the OS but cannot. Both
> > computer see the hard drive in the bios ( no hard drive post errors).
>
> At which point, using which exact wording? Could
> it be that your BIOS has a bug in LBA support?
>
> > 3) I installed DOS 6 on the pentium 2 on a hdd, moved the hdd to the
> i486,
> > and it boots up every time, and works correctly. Currently the i486 does
> > not see any floppy drive or the gotek I have, but it sees the hdd
>
> What is a gotek? Does the floppy work with another OS?
> Proper wiring, proper jumpers, proper BIOS CMOS setup?
>
> I assume you mean MS DOS 6 by DOS 6? And you had to use
> the Pentium2 to install it for the 486 because even MS
> DOS cannot use the floppy on the 486? Note that MS DOS
> 6 never uses LBA, so if your LBA BIOS has a bug, this
> would not affect MS DOS, but this also limits it to at
> most 8 GB usable disk size. You can also use a special
> feature of our SYS command to modify a flag in your
> FreeDOS kernel file to either disable or force LBA,
> in case LBA or CHS is broken. Depending on whether you
> use FAT16 or FAT32 partitions, you can use different
> boot sectors to prefer CHS or LBA, but I am not sure
> how to access this via SYS command line options. This
> depends on the specific version of our SYS you use.
>
> This may also depend on your BIOS CMOS setup choices.
>
> > 4) it does not get far enough to offer the JEMMEX option on either
> computer.
>
> How far exactly does it get?
>
> > 5) When you load either a Windows 98 CD, or a freedos CD in the pentium
> 2,
> > both give an option to boot from hdd. When I do this freedos boots.
>
> You say FreeDOS boots okay from harddisk when you first start to
> boot from a Win98 or FreeDOS CD and then abort that to continue
> booting from harddisk, on the Pentium2?
>
> > 6) I tried formatting it on 98 then installing freedos to the partition,
> > but it still gives the same error. However this is with automated
> > installer, perhaps with manual installation the problem can be fixed.
>
> That sounds like a question for Jerome. But as said, if you can,
> skip partitioning (and maybe even formatting) the disk in case you
> ran into a bug of FDISK (which that recent update may have fixed).
>
> It is indeed possible that the MBR itself causes troubles with
> booting. Our FDISK has some options to overwrite the boot code
> with one of the built-in templates of FDISK, but you could also
> just keep the boot code left behind by Win98. Our FDISK has he
> options /MBR and /BMBR and you can also use the /SMBR to copy
> the MBR to a file and /AMBR to copy a file to the MBR etc.
>
> > When DOS or 98 sees the freedos partiton, with it installed,
> > it calls it a non-dos partition. Not sure why.
>
> You would have to be more specific about that, 

Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[ZB]

On Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 08:40:25AM -0700, Andrew wrote:

> Ive installed different operating systems on the two hdds I have, over 15
> times in total between them all. Every time DOS and 98 installs fine,
> freedos always gives the same error. And if I boot from bios to cd to hdd,
> freedos also works, but I cant do that on i486 computer because it doesnt
> have cd or floppy drive working. So I know it isnt random/ hardware
> problem, like faulty hard drive. The OSes work fine.

You wrote in your initial post about "warnings" FreeDOS is giving you; so
it's clear to me: you've got hardware-related problem. System reported it
has trouble while trying to access your disk. Maybe something wrong with
your LBA settings (Normal/Large/LBA in BIOS)?

Anyway I would try a different drive/cable pair first
-- 
regards,
Zbigniew


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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Andrew]

Ive installed different operating systems on the two hdds I have, over 15
times in total between them all. Every time DOS and 98 installs fine,
freedos always gives the same error. And if I boot from bios to cd to hdd,
freedos also works, but I cant do that on i486 computer because it doesnt
have cd or floppy drive working. So I know it isnt random/ hardware
problem, like faulty hard drive. The OSes work fine.

On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 7:57 AM ZB  wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 07:37:30AM -0700, Andrew wrote:
>
> > 2) The error simply says disk read error in the pentium 2.
>
> Isn't it clear enough? You've got some sort of hardware problem. Try
> different cables, different HDD etc.
> --
> regards,
> Zbigniew
>
>
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Thank you very much,

Andrew Ingram
Fainman Group
Graduate Student, UCSD

Phone: (831)-320-3531
aj1ing...@gmail.com
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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Eric Auer]

Hi Andrew,

> 1) Both use IDE connectors, no sata.
> 
> 2) The error simply says disk read error in the pentium 2. The i486 simply
> has a black screen, like it is trying to load the OS but cannot. Both
> computer see the hard drive in the bios ( no hard drive post errors).

At which point, using which exact wording? Could
it be that your BIOS has a bug in LBA support?

> 3) I installed DOS 6 on the pentium 2 on a hdd, moved the hdd to the i486,
> and it boots up every time, and works correctly. Currently the i486 does
> not see any floppy drive or the gotek I have, but it sees the hdd

What is a gotek? Does the floppy work with another OS?
Proper wiring, proper jumpers, proper BIOS CMOS setup?

I assume you mean MS DOS 6 by DOS 6? And you had to use
the Pentium2 to install it for the 486 because even MS
DOS cannot use the floppy on the 486? Note that MS DOS
6 never uses LBA, so if your LBA BIOS has a bug, this
would not affect MS DOS, but this also limits it to at
most 8 GB usable disk size. You can also use a special
feature of our SYS command to modify a flag in your
FreeDOS kernel file to either disable or force LBA,
in case LBA or CHS is broken. Depending on whether you
use FAT16 or FAT32 partitions, you can use different
boot sectors to prefer CHS or LBA, but I am not sure
how to access this via SYS command line options. This
depends on the specific version of our SYS you use.

This may also depend on your BIOS CMOS setup choices.

> 4) it does not get far enough to offer the JEMMEX option on either computer.

How far exactly does it get?

> 5) When you load either a Windows 98 CD, or a freedos CD in the pentium 2,
> both give an option to boot from hdd. When I do this freedos boots.

You say FreeDOS boots okay from harddisk when you first start to
boot from a Win98 or FreeDOS CD and then abort that to continue
booting from harddisk, on the Pentium2?

> 6) I tried formatting it on 98 then installing freedos to the partition,
> but it still gives the same error. However this is with automated
> installer, perhaps with manual installation the problem can be fixed.

That sounds like a question for Jerome. But as said, if you can,
skip partitioning (and maybe even formatting) the disk in case you
ran into a bug of FDISK (which that recent update may have fixed).

It is indeed possible that the MBR itself causes troubles with
booting. Our FDISK has some options to overwrite the boot code
with one of the built-in templates of FDISK, but you could also
just keep the boot code left behind by Win98. Our FDISK has he
options /MBR and /BMBR and you can also use the /SMBR to copy
the MBR to a file and /AMBR to copy a file to the MBR etc.

> When DOS or 98 sees the freedos partiton, with it installed,
> it calls it a non-dos partition. Not sure why.

You would have to be more specific about that, for example using
FDISK /INFO /TECH or /STATUS or /DUMP or similar, although for
my taste, those are still not verbose enough, so maybe simply
show hexdumps of the right MBR after copying it to a file ;-)

> 7) I downloaded freedos last week, if should be up to date. I did see some
> old forums from 2002 or so with similar, but not exactly the same problem,
> that were fixed however.

I meant the FDISK update by Japheth and Tom, see:

https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/board_entry.php?id=17440

Given that this was about 1.3.1 while GITHUB as 1.3.4:

https://gitlab.com/FDOS/base/fdisk/-/tree/master/BIN

While the 1.3rc4 boot CD has 1.3.4a, it should be up to date:

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/previews/1.3-rc4/report.html

> 8) Could the bios not be able to compensate for the cylinder problem,
> causing it not to boot? Which is why it can boot from bios to cd to hdd,
> but not bios to hdd?

It could be that the BIOS and DOS disagree about the geometry,
but given that both agree about sector and head, just not about
the cylinder, I would rather expect this to be a problem with
FDISK or a bogus warning from the kernel in case it has a bug
regarding the decision when to show the message. But unlikely.

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[ZB]

On Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 07:37:30AM -0700, Andrew wrote:

> 2) The error simply says disk read error in the pentium 2.

Isn't it clear enough? You've got some sort of hardware problem. Try
different cables, different HDD etc.
-- 
regards,
Zbigniew


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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Andrew]

Thank you for replying.

1) Both use IDE connectors, no sata.

2) The error simply says disk read error in the pentium 2. The i486 simply
has a black screen, like it is trying to load the OS but cannot. Both
computer see the hard drive in the bios ( no hard drive post errors).

3) I installed DOS 6 on the pentium 2 on a hdd, moved the hdd to the i486,
and it boots up every time, and works correctly. Currently the i486 does
not see any floppy drive or the gotek I have, but it sees the hdd
correctly.

4) it does not get far enough to offer the JEMMEX option on either computer.

5) When you load either a Windows 98 CD, or a freedos CD in the pentium 2,
both give an option to boot from hdd. When I do this freedos boots. However
it gives the previous error when going from bios directly to boot hdd. It
seems like the bios cant see the boot partition, although it is set to
active.

6) I tried formatting it on 98 then installing freedos to the partition,
but it still gives the same error. However this is with automated
installer, perhaps with manual installation the problem can be fixed. Im
not sure if the problem is with the filesystem or with the mbr or with the
partition. When DOS or 98 sees the freedos partiton, with it installed, it
calls it a non-dos partition. Not sure why.

7) I downloaded freedos last week, if should be up to date. I did see some
old forums from 2002 or so with similar, but not exactly the same problem,
that were fixed however.

8) Could the bios not be able to compensate for the cylinder problem,
causing it not to boot? Which is why it can boot from bios to cd to hdd,
but not bios to hdd?

On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 7:18 AM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi Andrew,
>
> I assume your 486 and your Pentium2 both use ATAPI
> CD drives and IDE harddisks, not SATA? Can you be
> more specific about the (harddisk?) read errors on
> the Pentium 2 after install? What does the BIOS and
> CMOS setup say about your i486 which does not boot?
>
> In general, I recommend the following: When asked
> at boot, do NOT select the option with JEMMEX or
> JEMM386. The default config sys uses options for
> those two which require some level of compatibility
> from your hardware and firmware. We should use more
> humble defaults for that! As said, the easiest way
> to avoid this is to select one of the other boot
> menu options which simply load no EMM386 at all.
>
> What do you mean by the following?
>
> > However in the pentium 2 when I boot to any CD then boot
> > to the hdd, it is able to read the hdd and boot to freedos.
>
> > However the i486 I have not been able to get the cd/
> > floppy drive to work, but it can run dos off the hdd,
> > and the pentium 2 can run dos or windows 98.
>
> So the 486 does actually boot? Or not? How have you
> installed DOS to the harddisk without using the CD?
>
> By using a boot USB (unlikely for 486)? Or floppy?
> Or by installing while the harddisk of the 486 was
> in a more modern computer for easier installation?
>
> You say you have used different partitioning schemes,
> but all had some (?) problems with FreeDOS? Have you
> tried to keep the partitions from Win98 and just put
> FreeDOS on them, optionally after formatting them?
>
> If your problem is specific to FreeDOS FDISK, there
> has been an update recently which may fix it, but as
> said, if you already have a bootable FAT32 partition
> from Win98, you could simply recycle that as-is.
>
> Which warning does FreeDOS produce when booting from CD?
>
> > if I have freedos installed on the hdd: initdisk warning using
> > suspect partition pri:1 FS 06: with calculated values 260-254-63
> > instead of 261-254-63 cant get drive parameters for drive 01.
>
> Apparently this describes a 2 GB partition and the last
> cylinder of the partition mismatches by 1 between CHS
> and LBA values. The last head and sector both do match.
>
> Regards, Eric
>
>
>
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Andrew Ingram
Fainman Group
Graduate Student, UCSD

Phone: (831)-320-3531
aj1ing...@gmail.com
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Re: [Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Eric Auer]

Hi Andrew,

I assume your 486 and your Pentium2 both use ATAPI
CD drives and IDE harddisks, not SATA? Can you be
more specific about the (harddisk?) read errors on
the Pentium 2 after install? What does the BIOS and
CMOS setup say about your i486 which does not boot?

In general, I recommend the following: When asked
at boot, do NOT select the option with JEMMEX or
JEMM386. The default config sys uses options for
those two which require some level of compatibility
from your hardware and firmware. We should use more
humble defaults for that! As said, the easiest way
to avoid this is to select one of the other boot
menu options which simply load no EMM386 at all.

What do you mean by the following?

> However in the pentium 2 when I boot to any CD then boot
> to the hdd, it is able to read the hdd and boot to freedos.

> However the i486 I have not been able to get the cd/
> floppy drive to work, but it can run dos off the hdd,
> and the pentium 2 can run dos or windows 98.

So the 486 does actually boot? Or not? How have you
installed DOS to the harddisk without using the CD?

By using a boot USB (unlikely for 486)? Or floppy?
Or by installing while the harddisk of the 486 was
in a more modern computer for easier installation?

You say you have used different partitioning schemes,
but all had some (?) problems with FreeDOS? Have you
tried to keep the partitions from Win98 and just put
FreeDOS on them, optionally after formatting them?

If your problem is specific to FreeDOS FDISK, there
has been an update recently which may fix it, but as
said, if you already have a bootable FAT32 partition
from Win98, you could simply recycle that as-is.

Which warning does FreeDOS produce when booting from CD?

> if I have freedos installed on the hdd: initdisk warning using
> suspect partition pri:1 FS 06: with calculated values 260-254-63
> instead of 261-254-63 cant get drive parameters for drive 01.

Apparently this describes a 2 GB partition and the last
cylinder of the partition mismatches by 1 between CHS
and LBA values. The last head and sector both do match.

Regards, Eric



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Re: [Freedos-user] How to list "active" drives?

[Eric Auer]

Hi Paul,

next to Jerome's tools, you may also like WHICHFAT and CDROM2:

https://auersoft.eu/soft/specials/

C:\>whichfat /?
WHICHFAT [x:]
Returns: generic:
0=FAT32 kernel, 1=FAT16 kernel 2=/? found.
For 1 drive:
0 not FAT, 1 no local drive,
12 FAT12, 16 FAT16, 32 FAT32.
C:\>

In other words it returns errorlevel 2 after showing the help.

For example:

C:\>whichfat e:
Drive is FAT16.
C:\>echo %errorlevel%
16

C:\>whichfat f:
Drive is FAT32.
C:\>echo %errorlevel%
32

C:\>whichfat
Kernel limit: FAT32.
C:\>echo %errorlevel%
0

Also, check CDROM2UI:

https://auersoft.eu/soft/

C:\>cdrom2

Freeware CDROM toolkit with audio support - written and
conceived in 2003 by Eric Auer 

Usage: CDROM [EJECT|CLOSE|LOCK|UNLOCK|RESET] X:
Example: CDROM EJECT N:

Audio: CDROM [PAUSE|CONT|INFO|PLAYnn] X:
(xx is audio track number)

Ask *CDEX 2.0+ if a CD-ROM exists: CDROM N:

Errorlevels: 0 okay, 1 failed / no such drive.
Shows a list of valid drives if invalid selection.
Not all drives do all commands.

C:\>cdrom c:
C: is no CD-ROM drive, but < N: > is.

C:\>cdrom2 info n:
Command: INFO
Valid audio track numbers: 01-03
To see individual track start and end times,
please PLAY the track in question. No track
listing to screen implemented yet...
Audio play in progress. Q-Channel tells:
Track 01.00, relative position 00:00.42, absolute position 00:01.66
Done.

C:\>cdrom2 play01 n:
Command: PLAY

Playing audio track 01
Already playing? Sending PAUSE command to be safe...
Valid audio track numbers: 01-03
Playing audio from seek position 00:02.33 to 04:16.33
Audio playing should now start. Returning to DOS.
Done.

Audio then continues to play in the background, you
can use the INFO command to check the current position,
or possibly non-position, as shown above.

Of course this only works if you have the audio out
connector of your drive connected to your sound card
or mainboard, or use a drive headphone output socket.

Regards, Eric

> DRIVE.EXE - reports some info on all drives or a specific drive / disk.
> DTYPE.COM - reports a one-liner piece of information about current drive.
> INFO.EXE - reports some system information, including a section on drives.




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Re: [Freedos-user] How to list "active" drives?

[Jerome Shidel]

Hi Paul,

> On Jun 9, 2021, at 8:48 AM, Paul Dufresne via Freedos-user 
>  wrote:
> 
> I am reading back the list... and I am at the critique of 1.3rc3.
> 
> I think I saw some post about problems of identifying which drives are 
> "active" (have a driver that drive them).
> Somehow it was mentions about file manager (GUI one) that helps with that, 
> but seems that it feels not being DOS anymore...
> 
> Anyway, I remember sometimes typing:
> d:
> e:
> f:
> etc... in order to find out which one have something...
> 
> I guess there should be an utility to automate this process.
> I don't think there is one yet.
> 
> Not sure how to write it. I did not thought much about the how.

Did it decades ago. :-)

I don’t recall if it handles the list mentioned drive A: / B: swap disk issue 
on single drive systems or not. Anyhow, stuck 3 such ancient utilities up one 
my server http://fd.lod.bz  for you to try. For now under 
the /utils directory. 

DRIVE.EXE - reports some info on all drives or a specific drive / disk.
DTYPE.COM - reports a one-liner piece of information about current drive.
INFO.EXE - reports some system information, including a section on drives.

I know I still have sources for at least DRIVE and INFO, there up on Github in 
my Dusty TP7 source collection. Probably DTYPE as well. 

:-)

Jerome

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[Freedos-user] How to list "active" drives?

[Paul Dufresne via Freedos-user]

I am reading back the list... and I am at the critique of 1.3rc3.



I think I saw some post about problems of identifying which drives are "active" 
(have a driver that drive them).

Somehow it was mentions about file manager (GUI one) that helps with that, but 
seems that it feels not being DOS anymore...



Anyway, I remember sometimes typing:

d:

e:

f:

etc... in order to find out which one have something...



I guess there should be an utility to automate this process.

I don't think there is one yet.



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[Freedos-user] Freedos Install Problem

[Andrew]

Hello Guys,
I am new to the mailing list and retro computers in general, (mostly work
on linux), but I've been having some problems with installation. I have a
Pentium 2 233mhz, 128mb ram, and a compaq presario i486, 8mb of ram ive
been trying to install freedos to. After the install and booting from hdd
freedos, the pentium 2 gives disk read errors, and the i486 simply stays on
black screen and never boots. However in the pentium 2 when I boot to any
CD then boot to the hdd, it is able to read the hdd and boot to freedos.
However the i486 I have not been able to get the cd/ floppy drive to work,
but it can run dos off the hdd, and the pentium 2 can run dos or windows 98.

 On the pentium 2, I use the same hdd and remake the partition, (delete
partition, fdisk /mbr, new partition), I am able to install and boot
directly from hdd windows 98 or dos.  I have tried letting freedos use its
own partition scheme, tried 2gb fat16 only, and tried 2gb fat32 only. All
of them have the same problem. When freedos boots from cd, it also gives a
warning if I have freedos installed on the hdd: initdisk warning using
suspect partition pri:1 FS 06: with calculated values 260-254-63 instead of
261-254-63 cant get drive parameters for drive 01. I am guessing this
is the cause of the boot error. I have also tried multiple drives, the
current one I am using is is seagate barracuda 7200 at 200gb, width ide
interface.

Thank you very much,

Andrew Ingram
Fainman Group
Graduate Student, UCSD

Phone: (831)-320-3531
aj1ing...@gmail.com
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