Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS on the second partition of the disk
2013/4/22 Felix Miata mrma...@earthlink.net also maybe influenced or caused by VE-300 emulation firmware when using it All tests were done with the disk OUT of the VE-300 case. -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS on the second partition of the disk
2013/4/22 Felix Miata mrma...@earthlink.net On 2013-04-22 02:07 (GMT+0200) Aleve Sicofante composed: ...2.5 drive enclosure from Zalman, the VE-300... Is there any USB3 support in FreeDOS??? All my external backup cases except my oldest one include eSATA support. eSATA is mostly all I ever use for external HDs. They're DOS bootable exactly as if an internal HD as long as the BIOS can enable them to be seen as a first HD at POST time, and their partitioning is BIOS compatible. I don't have USB 3.0 ports right here, but I'll try soon. There shouldn't be any problems, though. USB 3.0 is compatible with USB 2.0 and as long as the BIOS sees the disk, I don't think FreeDOS won't see the disk. I'll let you know when I try, probably this afternoon. -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS on the second partition of the disk
I have a single 40GB disk and I need its first partition for other purposes, so I want to install FreeDOS on the second partition of the disk (that's the last 1GB of the disk, BTW). The process seems to be the same as if chose the first partition, but when I'm finished, FreeDOS won't boot. It will boot indeed if I install it on the first partition. Regarding the boot method, I honestly don't know the differences between the boot methods presented at the end of the installation process. I've chosen between 1 and 2, with no results (I haven't tried 3 and 4). Is it possible to install FreeDOS on the second partition at all or is it mandatory to use the first partition? If it's possible, what do I have to do to make it boot? Thanks for any help. -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS on the second partition of the disk
2013/4/21 Felix Miata mrma...@earthlink.net On 2013-04-21 15:48 (GMT+0200) Aleve Sicofante composed: I have a single 40GB disk and I need its first partition for other purposes, so I want to install FreeDOS on the second partition of the disk (that's the last 1GB of the disk, BTW). The process seems to be the same as if chose the first partition, but when I'm finished, FreeDOS won't boot. It will boot indeed if I install it on the first partition. Regarding the boot method, I honestly don't know the differences between the boot methods presented at the end of the installation process. I've chosen between 1 and 2, with no results (I haven't tried 3 and 4). Is it possible to install FreeDOS on the second partition at all or is it mandatory to use the first partition? If it's possible, what do I have to do to make it boot? What boots when you turn it on depends on the content of the MBR. With generic DOS-compatible code in the first part of the MBR, what boots depends on a flag in the last part of the MBR containing the partition table. The bootable flag needs to be moved from the first partition's entry there to the second one's entry. Without other software, once you do that, the first partition will no longer be bootable unless the flag is moved back. To work around this several solutions are available involving either replacing the MBR code and/or installing a boot manager and/or reconfiguring one already present in a current installation to present a menu at boot time to choose what to boot. What you would then have is a multi-boot system, meaning a system with two, three or more operating systems installed and bootable. Any number of utilities, including FDISK, can quickly and simply move the bootable flag. Some call it make startable or make active or activate. More info: http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/partitioningindex.html Thanks Felix, so it doesn't matter which choice I select in the last installation step? I'm referring to the last step you can see on this picture: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/freedos/nfs/project/f/fr/freedos/5/5b/Installhdd21.png. What choice from 1 to 5 should I select? My first partition is NOT a bootable OS partition, so I understand I should install some boot manager like grub or something like that? Thanks again. -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS on the second partition of the disk
2013/4/21 Felix Miata mrma...@earthlink.net On 2013-04-21 17:48 (GMT+0200) Aleve Sicofante composed: Thanks Felix, so it doesn't matter which choice I select in the last installation step? I'm referring to the last step you can see on this picture: http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/freedos/nfs/project/f/fr/freedos/5/5b/Installhdd21.png. What choice from 1 to 5 should I select? My first partition is NOT a bootable OS partition, so I understand I should install some boot manager like grub or something like that? Because the first isn't a bootable OS anyway, I would definitely choose #1, the simplest. If the OS that needs access to the first is old and unsophisticated, another solution might be needed for it to maintain access to it. OK, but even if I choose #1 I'll need a boot manager, right? GRUB will do? -- Precog is a next-generation analytics platform capable of advanced analytics on semi-structured data. The platform includes APIs for building apps and a phenomenal toolset for data science. Developers can use our toolset for easy data analysis visualization. Get a free account! http://www2.precog.com/precogplatform/slashdotnewsletter ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS on the second partition of the disk
2013/4/21 Kenneth J. Davis jere...@fdos.org There are two different issues here. 1) The hard drive's master boot record (MBR - 1st sector where the partition table resides) must have bootable code installed. If you later intend to boot an OS from the 1st partition then installing a boot manager is a good idea, otherwise you can use the default boot code. You may need to add that code, as depending on how you partitioned the drive it may or may not have been installed. Fdisk /MBR (check the help before blindly doing it though) can do this in FreeDOS or MSDOS. Alternately installing GRUB or SYSLINUX or whatever to the MBR will place its specific boot code there. For the standard boot code you will also need to ensure the 2nd partition (the one with FreeDOS) is marked active (other boot managers may call it make bootable or startable). From FDISK there is an option to indicate the active partition. 2) The default MBR will then load the boot code from the active partition [aka the volume boot code]. This is where the choices 1-5 come into play. You want to choose option 1 to install the FreeDOS boot code to the 2nd partition. Before running sys (here option 5 may be the better choice) make sure that you are running sys to correct partition. The kernel will treat the boot drive as C: Since you are familiar with GRUB, the simplest is to use it and have it chainload the kernel.sys. If you still have problems then I can setup a test computer and send you better instructions for running fdisk and sys, but the combination of those two should get you booting. Jeremy Thanks Jeremy and thanks to Felix too. I think at this point I should paint the whole picture, so you guys get a better idea. I bought a 2.5 drive enclosure from Zalman, the VE-300, that acts as two devices in one: it shows itself to the system as two devices: a hard disk drive AND an optical disk drive. The optical drive has in it what corresponds to an ISO that resides in a special directory of the FIRST partition in the hard disk. You choose which ISO with a clickwheel and an LCD menu on the Zalman enclosure. The fact that the Zalman VE-300 won't understand but the first partition for its optical drive emulation is the reason I can't use the first partition for FreeDOS. This setup will be my repairman companion and I want FreeDOS for those utilities that would otherwise need a floppy drive or are distributed only as DOS utilities. FreeDOS doesn't seem to understand very well USB, so for installation purposes I'm not using the Zalman enclosure, just the bare SATA drive and an ordinary SATA optical drive loaded with a FreeDOS CD. The HD is 40GB in size and it's been always the only disk in the system. I created two PRIMARY partitions: a 39GB one and a 1GB one. I marked the second partition as Active. I did all this using the tools provided in the FreeDOS CD. After partitioning and rebooting, I proceeded with the installation of FreeDOS to the second partition. I must say the installer didn't like the partition I created, showed lots of errors and offered to recreate the partition (this happened every single time I did the installation, and that's at least 10 times...). I agreed with the installer's suggestion, the partition was recreated and the process continued. At some point I could read Syntax error (white letters at the top left on an empty blue screen) during the installation. That happened, again, every single time I tried installing, but it didn't seem to affect the whole procedure. Another little issue is that the installer would hang if I didn't choose everything instead of base and util, but what the heck, it's just a few megabytes. After finishing, the system won't boot if the installation wasn't made on the first or only partition (I tried both), no matter what I chose in the final screen. Now it's quite possible that there's no MBR sector. The disk was completely wiped before its first use for this. However in my many tries, I confirmed the installation could be done to a single partition or to a first of two partitions. Wouldn't that have created an MBR sector? In my last try, I installed Ubuntu on the first partition and grub recognized FreeDOS on the second. Both would boot perfectly well from grub. After some thoughts, I decided that having Ubuntu on my repairman companion wouldn't hurt (Ubuntu is what I use daily and I know it well), so I'll be installing it again tomorrow, using three partitions: the first one for the ISOs the Zalman enclosure needs for acting as an optical drive, the second one for a minimal Ubuntu install and the third one for FreeDOS. That should take care of all my issues with booting, I guess. But after this experience I'd say there's definitely some room for improvement to be made to the FreeDOS installer, IMHO. BTW: the installation procedure tells me I'm installing FreeDOS 1.0 all the time, not FreeDOS 1.1. I swear I burned the only image I downloaded from the
