Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
Hi, I might be repeating some things here (and I'm no expert), but I don't know if you fixed this yet, so On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 8:57 PM, John Sowden jsow...@americansentry.net wrote: First of all, I did not make myslf clear. I was not running win98. I was only running the dos portion of win98. I wrote over the dos portion of win98 with freedos using the sys command. sys should not have overwritten anything except a small boot sector. You may be able to recover that (or similar) with TestDisk since you're using FAT32 (backup boot sector). For future reference, things like the MBR can be saved and recovered (to file, preferably on external media) with other smaller tools, e.g. BOOTMGR (which is its own tiny DOS-configurable boot manager). For PuppyLinux, I put GRUB (Legacy) in its own Linux (ext3) partition which is chain-loaded from BOOTMGR in the MBR (on primary, active FAT partition). Windows 7 could probably handle it (see third-party EasyBCD), but this seemed easier (famous last words). IIRC, some other boot managers (e.g. Gujin) can boot from their DOS .EXE (without any low-level installation) into your Linux (ext2) partition if you have vmlinuz + initrd.gz available on your FAT file system. I tried that once or twice, it seemed to work. My concerns are two: 1) In a multi-partitioned environment, how am I supposed to correctly install freedos on a partition without writing over the mbr where grub/lilo/etc resides. OS-specific installation tools rarely play well with others. Most people don't multi-boot, and most installations are from scratch, covering the entire disk. It's an arcane mess, thus most people don't mess with it. This is why emulators, VMs, DOS boxes, etc. are so popular. In other words, sys isn't GRUB nor LILO nor LOADLIN friendly, by design. If you want to use other OSes, you have to use a (semi-)supported boot manager. Luckily, DOS is small, and FD sys.com allows you to put the boot sector in an actual file, which is (IIRC) how most other boot loaders support DOS. (Of course, you could also boot up DOS with a floppy or liveCD or similar.) I'm not sure it's possible to have a single, standalone boot sector that would load all DOSes. They always vary in their names of the kernel (MSDOS.SYS+IO.SYS vs. IBMBIOS.COM+IBMDOS.COM vs. KERNEL.SYS, etc. etc.) and raw disk location and even in other details (initial load segment). 1a) Do I need to install FreeDOS on each fat32 partition? No, you only need one bootable media at startup. All others data partitions don't need a kernel nor shell nor boot sector at all. With BIOS + MBR, you're limited to 4 primary partitions anyways (though more for extended), and total size can't exceed 2 TB. 2) Now I am unable to access my linux partition. This drive has 6 partitions. Three are fat32 dos partitions, one is Linux swap, one is Linux and the last is about 2 gb laying fallow. TestDisk (DJGPP port) can also directly recover those files from Linux (ext2) partitions. Like also mentioned, you may also be able to reinstall your boot loader (LILO?) from original SuSE media, if you still have it lying around (5+ years later? doubt it). Obligatory links for further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/sys.htm http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk http://sourceforge.net/p/gujin/wiki/Home/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LILO_(boot_loader) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loadlin http://www.freedos.org/software/?cat=boot -- DreamFactory - Open Source REST JSON Services for HTML5 Native Apps OAuth, Users, Roles, SQL, NoSQL, BLOB Storage and External API Access Free app hosting. Or install the open source package on any LAMP server. Sign up and see examples for AngularJS, jQuery, Sencha Touch and Native! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=63469471iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
Hi John, - InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0b: with calculated values 81-194-63 instead of 75-254-63 BIOS and partitioning disagree about CHS geometry and your partition type 0b is FAT32 CHS. You could switch to FAT32 LBA where geometry is irrelevant. Note that Windows does not show this warning, it just tries. Also note that many fdisk-like partitioning tools can delete partition boot sectors as side-effect of edits which makes the partition look unformatted and empty. What I meant was to ONLY change the partition type, a byte in the partition table, from 0b to 0c. Or simply ignore the warning from FreeDOS, of course... Now that I think about it, it's not much of a difference. It may just be your SuSE boot manager (stage 1.5? stage2?) hidden somewhere. No. The geometry warning is from DOS itself. Stage 1.5 and 2 are something from GRUB boot manager, not specific to SuSE. If you use some older SuSE version, it probably uses LiLo. Since you say Win98, I'm assuming this is FAT32, which means you may have a backup boot sector somewhere. Win98 FAT32 typically does, but the message suggests that you installed DOS on the partition. You can of course use a Win98 DOS 7.x boot disk and just SYS C: again if the rest of Windows is still there... I just tried to load Suse. The functions key for Linux both were ignored, staying in a loop asking for a function key press. I think the loader was Lilo. This was installed several years ago (5+). The computer has 16 MB RAM. I mainly use it as a DOS computer. I was running the DOS of Windows 98, yes FAT32. That is why I wanted to run the Fat32 version of fd. I use 4dos as my command processor. You can install FreeDOS and Windows 98 on the same partition: Use FreeDOS SYS or another tool to backup the boot sector of Win98 and make backup copies of command.com, config.sys and autoexec.bat before you SYS to FreeDOS. Use a boot manager, maybe even the simple metaboot for FreeDOS, to select one of the two boot sectors (FreeDOS or Win98) at each boot. You have to use some careful configurations tricks to keep both systems out of the way of each other. For example there has to be fdconfig.sys for FreeDOS, which takes priority there, so Windows can have config.sys for itself. This allows you to let FreeDOS use another file instead of autoexec.bat, because FreeCOM allows selecting another file in the SHELL line in fdconfig.sys - if you want to use 4DOS, you have to check if 4DOS can do the same. Also, make sure that if Windows 98 uses c:\command.com then your FreeDOS shell, be it 4DOS or FreeCOM, of course has to be somewhere else :-) So if this was not the right way, how am I supposed to install freedos on a multipartitioned drive? Can I write over the fd with lilo. My concern is that I have a lot of important data on this DOS computer. If the computer has important data, doing a backup now seems quite important: This thread mentions that the computer has 16 MB RAM and the last time I ran SuSE (6.x, maybe 5.x) on such hardware was 10 years ago. The harddisk must be very old unless you replaced it recently... Note that that SuSE version ran Linux 2.2 which did not even support USB yet. Regards, Eric -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
Hi, On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 4:06 AM, Eric Auer e.a...@jpberlin.de wrote: - InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0b: with calculated values 81-194-63 instead of 75-254-63 BIOS and partitioning disagree about CHS geometry and your partition type 0b is FAT32 CHS. You could switch to FAT32 LBA where geometry is irrelevant. Note that Windows does not show this warning, it just tries. How exactly shall he do this? I vaguely remember having to do similar once before, but I can't remember how I did it. I had thought BTTR's BOOTMGR, but a quick look doesn't show any (obvious) way to change partition type. Maybe I just used GParted, dunno. Or maybe sys config c:\kernel.sys FORCELBA=1 would work here?? Since you say Win98, I'm assuming this is FAT32, which means you may have a backup boot sector somewhere. Win98 FAT32 typically does, but the message suggests that you installed DOS on the partition. You can of course use a Win98 DOS 7.x boot disk and just SYS C: again if the rest of Windows is still there... Assuming he still has the disks. Otherwise TestDisk might be a good option. You can install FreeDOS and Windows 98 on the same partition: Yes, but that's complex, and that doesn't sound like what we wants to do. So if this was not the right way, how am I supposed to install freedos on a multipartitioned drive? Can I write over the fd with lilo. My concern is that I have a lot of important data on this DOS computer. If the computer has important data, doing a backup now seems quite important: Yes, backup backup backup. This thread mentions that the computer has 16 MB RAM and the last time I ran SuSE (6.x, maybe 5.x) on such hardware was 10 years ago. The harddisk must be very old unless you replaced it recently... Note that that SuSE version ran Linux 2.2 which did not even support USB yet. Presumably it works well enough for him. Though the way things are these days, you can't run hardly anything without tons of RAM. I think minimum is often i686 PAE and 128 MB RAM, and most don't even bother supporting that. Swapping like mad is not a lot of fun. -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
Hi, On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 4:06 AM, Eric Auer e.a...@jpberlin.de wrote: Win98 FAT32 typically does, but the message suggests that you installed DOS on the partition. You can of course use a Win98 DOS 7.x boot disk and just SYS C: again if the rest of Windows is still there... Assuming he still has the disks. Otherwise TestDisk might be a good option. I forgot about this. Not sure of the details, but maybe?? it'll help. http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/sys.htm SYS OPTIONS: /OEM:W9xuse MS Win9x DOS compatible settings. default is /OEM[:AUTO], select DOS based on existing files. /NOBAKBS : skips copying boot sector to backup bs, FAT32 only else ignored -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
On 11/09/2013 09:34 AM, Rugxulo wrote: Hi, On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 4:06 AM, Eric Auer e.a...@jpberlin.de wrote: - InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0b: with calculated values 81-194-63 instead of 75-254-63 BIOS and partitioning disagree about CHS geometry and your partition type 0b is FAT32 CHS. You could switch to FAT32 LBA where geometry is irrelevant. Note that Windows does not show this warning, it just tries. How exactly shall he do this? I vaguely remember having to do similar once before, but I can't remember how I did it. I had thought BTTR's BOOTMGR, but a quick look doesn't show any (obvious) way to change partition type. Maybe I just used GParted, dunno. Or maybe sys config c:\kernel.sys FORCELBA=1 would work here?? Since you say Win98, I'm assuming this is FAT32, which means you may have a backup boot sector somewhere. Win98 FAT32 typically does, but the message suggests that you installed DOS on the partition. You can of course use a Win98 DOS 7.x boot disk and just SYS C: again if the rest of Windows is still there... Assuming he still has the disks. Otherwise TestDisk might be a good option. You can install FreeDOS and Windows 98 on the same partition: Yes, but that's complex, and that doesn't sound like what we wants to do. So if this was not the right way, how am I supposed to install freedos on a multipartitioned drive? Can I write over the fd with lilo. My concern is that I have a lot of important data on this DOS computer. If the computer has important data, doing a backup now seems quite important: Yes, backup backup backup. This thread mentions that the computer has 16 MB RAM and the last time I ran SuSE (6.x, maybe 5.x) on such hardware was 10 years ago. The harddisk must be very old unless you replaced it recently... Note that that SuSE version ran Linux 2.2 which did not even support USB yet. Presumably it works well enough for him. Though the way things are these days, you can't run hardly anything without tons of RAM. I think minimum is often i686 PAE and 128 MB RAM, and most don't even bother supporting that. Swapping like mad is not a lot of fun. -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user Wow! As usual when I present problems on these mailing lists, the solutions are complex. Nothings easy! I also have a tendency to not explain completely. Usually I'm pretty precise. I am not running any MS Windows on this computer. I am running the DOS 7.10 from Win98 on this computer so I can make use of Fat32, getting more efficiency on a UK MB HD. I primarily use this computer to connect to a DOS network (Little Big Lan) in my office. This computer also has Suse on it. UK which version, but I have been using Ubuntu (on another computer in my office not connected to this lan) since shortly after it was announced. Unfortunately there is email on the suse partitions and I would like (need to?) keep/recover. I have a usb driver for DOS that I use to backup. Usually only selected directories, but this time I'll back up the entire 630 MB. According to a text file from Ranish Partition Manager, this is a 10GB HD with 3 fat32 partitions, a linux swap, and a linux ext2fs partition. I have some pretty detailed in re: partitions, sectors, cylinders, etc. from rRPM reports I saved to disk that might be helpful. I cannot run RPM yet because it requires a DPMI? program. I have found some system files (created by me) that date about 2004, but there is no reference to Linux. I can now run RPM if that helps. John -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
Hi John, As usual when I present problems on these mailing lists, the solutions are complex. Nothings easy! I also have a tendency to not explain completely. Usually I'm pretty precise. I am not running any MS Windows on this computer. I am running the DOS 7.10 from Win98 on this computer so I can make use of Fat32, getting more efficiency on a UK MB HD. I primarily use this computer to connect to a DOS network Well your problem is also complex: You want two DOS versions, FreeDOS and Win98-DOS, on the same computer. Because they use the same style of drive letter numbering, some extra effort is involved in keeping their configuration separate while they both use the same C: drive. I hope the docs for metakern help you regarding this config trickery. Unless of course you simply want to replace Win98 DOS 7.10 by FreeDOS, then you do not have to worry about how to keep Win98 DOS bootable... Unfortunately there is email on the suse partitions and I would like (need to?) keep/recover. I have a usb driver for DOS that I use to backup. Usually only selected directories, but this time I'll back up the entire 630 MB. According to a text file from Ranish Partition Manager, this is a 10GB HD with 3 fat32 partitions, a linux swap, and a linux ext2fs partition. I have some pretty detailed in re: partitions, Good to know and interesting that now DOS has more USB support than the ancient (?) Linux on that computer :-) sectors, cylinders, etc. from rRPM reports I saved to disk that might be helpful. I cannot run RPM yet because it requires a DPMI? program. I have found some system files (created by me) that date about 2004, but there is no reference to Linux. I can now run RPM if that helps. If you need DPMI, you probably need CWSDPMI.EXE somewhere in your PATH directories. Note that this defaults to using swapfiles on C: so you may want to disable that in some cases - see the docs. Regards, Eric -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
On 11/09/2013 10:35 AM, Eric Auer wrote: Hi John, As usual when I present problems on these mailing lists, the solutions are complex. Nothings easy! I also have a tendency to not explain completely. Usually I'm pretty precise. I am not running any MS Windows on this computer. I am running the DOS 7.10 from Win98 on this computer so I can make use of Fat32, getting more efficiency on a UK MB HD. I primarily use this computer to connect to a DOS network Well your problem is also complex: You want two DOS versions, FreeDOS and Win98-DOS, on the same computer. Because they use the same style of drive letter numbering, some extra effort is involved in keeping their configuration separate while they both use the same C: drive. I hope the docs for metakern help you regarding this config trickery. Unless of course you simply want to replace Win98 DOS 7.10 by FreeDOS, then you do not have to worry about how to keep Win98 DOS bootable... to clarify, I ran sys c: from a freedos floppy to write over the win98 OS with freedos. that is how this all started. John -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
Hi, On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:25 PM, John R. Sowden jsow...@americansentry.net wrote: Wow! As usual when I present problems on these mailing lists, the solutions are complex. Nothings easy! Welcome to computers, where easy means hours of work. I also have a tendency to not explain completely. Usually I'm pretty precise. I am not running any MS Windows on this computer. I am running the DOS 7.10 from Win98 on this computer so I can make use of Fat32, getting more efficiency on a UK MB HD. Okay, yes, admittedly, FAT32 has some advantages, but it's also less supported on some older DOSes and tools. I primarily use this computer to connect to a DOS network (Little Big Lan) in my office. This computer also has Suse on it. UK which version, but I have been using Ubuntu (on another computer in my office not connected to this lan) since shortly after it was announced. Unfortunately there is email on the suse partitions and I would like (need to?) keep/recover. I have a usb driver for DOS that I use to backup. Usually only selected directories, but this time I'll back up the entire 630 MB. You can probably use the DOS (DJGPP) version of TestDisk to read/recover files from an ext2 partition, if that sounds easier than trying to recover your Linux system's booter: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk-6.14.dos.zip According to a text file from Ranish Partition Manager, this is a 10GB HD with 3 fat32 partitions, a linux swap, and a linux ext2fs partition. It also used to be possible (2.4 kernels) to use FAT as host to Linux via UMSDOS or whatever. But the last major distro to do that was Slackware 11 (2006?). Heck, I think 14.1 was just released (and lots has changed). Okay, I'm not really recommending you switch entirely to FAT32, just saying it's possible. (Someone else might even say, Just use DOSEMU under SuSE, but networking under that sounds like a pain, so it wouldn't be any easier, IMO.) I have some pretty detailed in re: partitions, sectors, cylinders, etc. from rRPM reports I saved to disk that might be helpful. I cannot run RPM yet because it requires a DPMI? program. I have found some system files (created by me) that date about 2004, but there is no reference to Linux. I can now run RPM if that helps. Uh ... I dunno. :-) RPM (or RPM5) I thought was a package manager, basically a wrapper around a cpio archive. I'm not aware of any DPMI port of that, and I have no idea what rRPM means (or maybe typo?). You can get various DPMI servers here, but I don't really know how that would help you very much here: http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/djgpp/current/v2misc/csdpmi7b.zip http://www.japheth.de/Download/HX/HXRT216.zip -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
Hi John, to clarify, I ran sys c: from a freedos floppy to write over the win98 OS with freedos. that is how this all started. Ah, so you do not need Win98-DOS any more? That is easy :-) Actually the question then becomes: Apart from the FreeDOS warning about geometry, which is mostly cosmetic AFAIR, is there anything not working in FreeDOS at the moment? Regards, Eric -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
On 11/09/2013 06:30 PM, Eric Auer wrote: Hi John, to clarify, I ran sys c: from a freedos floppy to write over the win98 OS with freedos. that is how this all started. Ah, so you do not need Win98-DOS any more? That is easy :-) Actually the question then becomes: Apart from the FreeDOS warning about geometry, which is mostly cosmetic AFAIR, is there anything not working in FreeDOS at the moment? Regards, Eric First of all, I did not make myslf clear. I was not running win98. I was only running the dos portion of win98. I wrote over the dos portion of win98 with freedos using the sys command. My concerns are two: 1) In a multi-partitioned environment, how am I supposed to correctly install freedos on a partition without writing over the mbr where grub/lilo/etc resides. 1a) Do I need to install FreeDOS on each fat32 partition? 2) Now I am unable to access my linux partition. This drive has 6 partitions. Three are fat32 dos partitions, one is Linux swap, one is Linux and the last is about 2 gb laying fallow. -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
Hi again, given that I have very little information about your problem and situation, I just give you a very big pile of ideas - maybe there is something useful in it, or maybe something to ponder further. First of all, I did not make myslf clear. I was not running win98. I was only running the dos portion of win98. I wrote over the dos portion of win98 with freedos using the sys command. My concerns are two: 1) In a multi-partitioned environment, how am I supposed to correctly install freedos on a partition without writing over the mbr where grub/lilo/etc resides. The SYS command does not overwrite the MBR. So DOS only boots when you select to boot from the DOS partititon in your GRUB / LILO menu. I am assuming that your boot menu does not need a copy of the DOS boot sector as a file. Instead, I assume that your coresponding menu item is defined as (chain-)boot the boot sector of that partition. If your menu does support boot sector files, that obviously gives the interesting opportunity to have MS DOS and FreeDOS in separate menu items while both DOS versions still share the C: drive, but you already said that you do not need that. What happens if you select Linux in your boot menu now? You wrote that there was a problem for you to boot Linux at the moment. Or is the boot menu itself not there? If so, how did booting Linux work BEFORE you installed FreeDOS? Maybe you had a boot menu in MS DOS, not in the MBR? Note that you can use menus like metakern and grub4dos that can be installed on a DOS partititon: Metakern for example has the option to boot your Linux partition. It is possible that there is a LILO or GRUB *there* which then loads Linux. If you install grub4dos, you can even define menu items to boot specific Linux kernel files, but I myself have no experience with grub4dos... Also note that no matter if you have your Linux boot menu in the MBR or at another location, the MBR also contains a boot flag telling which partition is booted by default. It might be that one setting brings you to a boot menu installed in a partition while another just directly boots the operating system installed in another partition. I am not sure which situation you get with the boot menu installed in the MBR, but most boot menu systems have a tool to reinstall the boot menu itself without touching the partitioning. While it was once popular to have boot menus in the MBR, I would now prefer having them installed in the partition of the operating system to which they belong (only if they do support doing that in a safe way without breaking contents of that partition, of course!) to avoid having to fight over which operating system gets to put their menu stuff in the MBR. Linux against Windows / MS DOS, for example... According to wikipedia, GRUB 1 is installed in the MBR and a few kilobytes following, while GRUB 2 is installed in the MBR and optionally in the boot sector of a Linux partition of your choice and in a few kilobytes after the MBR. That gives you a second possibility to boot GRUB 2 even if the MBR itself is in use by something else... For EFI systems, a small boot partition is used, not few kilobytes ... but EFI only applies to computers much newer than yours. LILO can be installed in the MBR or the boot sector of a Linux partition, too, plus either a few kilobytes after the MBR or some sectors at some other place (the place info can be updated by some tool). The LOADLIN boot menu, finally, is a DOS program which lets you boot Linux kernels from DOS, but you have to copy the kernel to a DOS-reachable place. SYSLINUX is vaguely similar to LOADLIN. As you see, there are many ways to boot Linux, e.g. PLoP, Smart Boot Manager, NTLDR, XOSL, GAG, etc.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_boot_loaders 1a) Do I need to install FreeDOS on each fat32 partition? As with MS DOS 7.10, you only have to install FreeDOS on C: to boot from it. You can then use the other partitions as other drive letters. Simply the same as with Microsoft :-) 2) Now I am unable to access my linux partition. This drive has 6 partitions. Three are fat32 dos partitions, one is Linux swap, one is Linux and the last is about 2 gb laying fallow. Because SYS does not change the MBR, I wonder which other step damaged your boot menu. I hope you have not changed partitions with FDISK? If only your GRUB or LILO are damaged, you could boot Linux from a CD, DVD, USB, network or similar and simply install GRUB or LILO again. I think SuSE even had some boot CD menu option for repairing installed Linux / make it boot again. I think your problem can be solved in two directions: If you are experienced with the low-level side of Linux, you probably can solve it yourself more easily than explaining all details now. On the other hand, you may want to explain what exactly is the current situation and what exactly caused it and what exactly was the original situation, possibly interactively on IRC or Skype or
[Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
I have a disk with Linux and win98 dos on it. I opt with function key to select which OD. Default is DOS. While in DOS, I executed sys c: from a floppy that I downloaded from the fd site. Now when I boot to this OS, I get, after the copyright notice and before a device? line in the config .sys, the following: - InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0b: with calculated values 81-194-63 instead of 75-254-63 C: HD1, Pri[ 1], CHS= 0-1-1, start= 0 MB, size= 603MB WARNING: using suspect partition Ext:1 FS 0b: with calculat4ed values 81-196-1 instead of 77-1-1 WARNING: using suspect partitionj Oh well ya'll got the idea. 5 warning messages, each calculated values and instead of values that are different. Finally it runs (haven't dried Suse yet). Have I written over my MBR or worse? John -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
Hi, On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 11:33 PM, John R. Sowden jsow...@americansentry.net wrote: I have a disk with Linux and win98 dos on it. I opt with function key to select which OD. Please don't OD.:-)I assume you meant OS. Default is DOS. While in DOS, I executed sys c: from a floppy that I downloaded from the fd site. Now when I boot to this OS, I get, after the copyright notice and before a device? line in the config .sys, the following: - InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0b: with calculated values 81-194-63 instead of 75-254-63 C: HD1, Pri[ 1], CHS= 0-1-1, start= 0 MB, size= 603MB WARNING: using suspect partition Ext:1 FS 0b: with calculat4ed values 81-196-1 instead of 77-1-1 WARNING: using suspect partitionj Oh well ya'll got the idea. 5 warning messages, each calculated values and instead of values that are different. Finally it runs (haven't dried Suse yet). I had thought there was a way to ignore (quiet) such warnings, but I don't see anything obvious in sys config: http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/sys.htm Now that I think about it, it's not much of a difference. It may just be your SuSE boot manager (stage 1.5? stage2?) hidden somewhere. If DOS still boots and runs, you're probably not totally hosed. (Do you know what boot manager is used for your install of Linux?) Have I written over my MBR or worse? Well, technically, yes, I'm pretty sure that's what SYS.COM does, it writes a boot sector to the MBR (master boot record). The mismatched numbers are from the partition table, also included in the MBR, presumably set with FDISK or similar tool when creating the FAT drive(s). Since you say Win98, I'm assuming this is FAT32, which means you may have a backup boot sector somewhere. But I don't know offhand how to recover it (though I'm fairly certain TestDisk can do it). Though I don't know if that's a good idea, and I'm not sure it's worth worrying about, but presumably someone else here has some more (better) info. You could also try to take a look at the raw hard drive with a tool like (wDE or similar) to see what is actually present at 77-1-1 (to see if it really is your Linux loader). -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
On 11/08/2013 09:52 PM, Rugxulo wrote: Hi, On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 11:33 PM, John R. Sowden jsow...@americansentry.net wrote: I have a disk with Linux and win98 dos on it. I opt with function key to select which OD. Please don't OD.:-)I assume you meant OS. Default is DOS. While in DOS, I executed sys c: from a floppy that I downloaded from the fd site. Now when I boot to this OS, I get, after the copyright notice and before a device? line in the config .sys, the following: - InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 0b: with calculated values 81-194-63 instead of 75-254-63 C: HD1, Pri[ 1], CHS= 0-1-1, start= 0 MB, size= 603MB WARNING: using suspect partition Ext:1 FS 0b: with calculat4ed values 81-196-1 instead of 77-1-1 WARNING: using suspect partitionj Oh well ya'll got the idea. 5 warning messages, each calculated values and instead of values that are different. Finally it runs (haven't dried Suse yet). I had thought there was a way to ignore (quiet) such warnings, but I don't see anything obvious in sys config: http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/sys.htm Now that I think about it, it's not much of a difference. It may just be your SuSE boot manager (stage 1.5? stage2?) hidden somewhere. If DOS still boots and runs, you're probably not totally hosed. (Do you know what boot manager is used for your install of Linux?) Have I written over my MBR or worse? Well, technically, yes, I'm pretty sure that's what SYS.COM does, it writes a boot sector to the MBR (master boot record). The mismatched numbers are from the partition table, also included in the MBR, presumably set with FDISK or similar tool when creating the FAT drive(s). Since you say Win98, I'm assuming this is FAT32, which means you may have a backup boot sector somewhere. But I don't know offhand how to recover it (though I'm fairly certain TestDisk can do it). Though I don't know if that's a good idea, and I'm not sure it's worth worrying about, but presumably someone else here has some more (better) info. You could also try to take a look at the raw hard drive with a tool like (wDE or similar) to see what is actually present at 77-1-1 (to see if it really is your Linux loader). -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user I just tried to load Suse. The functions key for Linux both were ignored, staying in a loop asking for a function key press. I think the loader was Lilo. This was installed several years ag ago (5+). The computer has 16 MB RAM. I mainly use it as a DOS computer. I was running the DOS of Windows 98, yes FAT32. That is why I wanted to run the Fat32 version of fd. I use 4dos as my command processor. So if this was not the right way, how am I supposed to install freedos on a multipartitioned drive? Can I write over the fd with lilo. My concern is that I have a lot of important data on this DOS computer. John -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
John, I've been using SuSE/openSUSE for over a decade without ever having seen a boot menu that uses function keys for selection. This suggests you've been using some boot loader other than one from openSUSE, one which was probably installed either in the MBR or in the partition the floppy disk recognized as C:, and which you disturbed or obliterated using the SYS command. The partitioner the SuSE installer uses may have been used to create partition(s) for its use using different logical geometry than that used by the installed DOS version(s) and/or the FD boot floppy. Likely the geometry isn't a real problem that needs fixing, but recovering the bootloader you had been using may be the first thing that needs doing. If I had it here what I would try is setting the system up to boot into the SuSE Grub bootloader using the recovery option from the SuSE installation media, and from that choose to boot either WinDOS or FreeDOS or openSUSE as desired. Before that though I would try moving the boot flag from C: to the Linux partition if the latter is a primary to see if Linux will boot. If it does, it probably already has menu entry(s) for booting DOS and/or Win98. It might be easier than recovering Linux bootloader status via repair to use a newer openSUSE installation media to upgrade Linux. If any Linux root or boot partition is a primary, I would install Grub to that primary, if it isn't there already. This option (booting from Linux on a primary without disturbing WinDOS MBR code) allows use of standard PC compatible MBR boot code, and won't corrupt the ability to boot Linux after any event like your application of SYS C:. All that would be required in a repeat of such event would be to restore the boot flag from the C: partition back to the Linux primary. cf. http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/install-doz-after.html -- The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Warningsafter installing FD on a partitioned Drive
On 2013-11-08 22:27 (GMT-0800) John R. Sowden composed: I just tried to load Suse. The functions key for Linux both were ignored, staying in a loop asking for a function key press. I think the loader was Lilo. This was installed several years ag ago (5+). The computer has 16 MB RAM. I mainly use it as a DOS With so little RAM it sounds like it may well have been over a decade ago and the computer 15 or more years old. Do you have the Linux install media still? If so, what version is it? computer. I was running the DOS of Windows 98, yes FAT32. That is why I wanted to run the Fat32 version of fd. I use 4dos as my command processor. So if this was not the right way, how am I supposed to install freedos on a multipartitioned drive? Did you consider using the installation CD rather than a floppy? Can I write over the fd with lilo. My In the past decade or more, most Linux distributions have been using Grub instead of Lilo. concern is that I have a lot of important data on this DOS computer. I don't think what you have done blocks access to your data more than temporarily. You should be able to boot live DOS or Linux media to copy data from wherever it is now to OM, USB or another HD before attempting a dangerous type of repair to the original HD. For a Linux recovery of DOS data I would use Knoppix on either USB or CD or DVD. Knoppix is the granddaddy of Live Linux media, with a huge toolset. The Systemrescue CD would be an alternative, often suggested by others, but which I've rarely used myself. -- The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive. Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- November Webinars for C, C++, Fortran Developers Accelerate application performance with scalable programming models. Explore techniques for threading, error checking, porting, and tuning. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60136231iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
