[Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with. I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external SCSI CD drive. To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a 1.44 floppy. This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image? Do you have a fix for this? -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy img. It doesn't fit! So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: dmccunney Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 9:26 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: > After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for > MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with. > I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot > floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external > SCSI CD drive. > To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a > 1.44 floppy. The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be installed on a CDROM. If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 »" See http://www.freedos.org/download/ > This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an > organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it > wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image? > Do you have a fix for this? The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions on the download page. __ Dennis -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
No bad sectors. I tried two different freshly formatted disks and ran scandisk on them just to be sure. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Felix Miata Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:30 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Dennis Fenton composed on 2017-03-23 20:32 (UTC-0500): > After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for > MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with. > I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot > floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external > SCSI CD drive. > To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a > 1.44 floppy. How much "too big"? Is it because your floppy has bad sectors. Floppies without bad sectors are rather uncommon around here. For this reason I try to avoid image writes, which demand all sectors in the media's spec be usable, and a format that worked once may well be that last the media will accept without error. > This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an > organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it > wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image? > Do you have a fix for this?-- "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/ -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a dis
Yes that is the file. I also found it on the FreeDOS download page. I'm not familiar with grub4dos. I'll look into it. Dennis Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Thomas Mueller Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:19 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a dis from Dennis Fenton: > After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for > MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with. > I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot > floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external > SCSI CD drive. > To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a > 1.44 floppy. > This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an > organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it > wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image? > Do you have a fix for this? Is this the floppy image? http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip I just found it on FreeDOS download page. But if too big to fit on 1.44 floppy, could you boot the image with grub4dos (latest and final version is 0.4.4)? https://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos/ I have booted "floppy" images far too big to fit on actual floppy. Otherwise, you could possibly use Syslinux (latest version 6.03) with memdisk, or possibly Grub2. Tom -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Exactly Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Felix Miata Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:56 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded image would not fit here either. -- "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/ -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
I was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space message. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.From: perditi...@gmail.comSent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 11:15 PMTo: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a diskOn Mar 23, 2017 9:32 PM, "Dennis Fenton" <dwf...@gmail.com> wrote:After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for... To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a 1.44 floppyWhat program are you using to write the image to your floppy? Boot images cannot be copied using copy, they must be written with a program like rawwrite or dd. Does it give an explicit error code or just a message about insufficient space?Thank you,Jeremy -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Thanks. I'll try diskcopy. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Rugxulo Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:49 AM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi, On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 10:56 PM, Felix Miata wrote: > > I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip > "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, > 2847 > 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded > image > would not fit here either. I downloaded the above (FD12FLOPPY.zip) and two of my own images (BARE_DOS and MetaDOS). All of them have the same size (1474560). A simple "file *.img" tells me that they all have 2880 sectors. I've written a few real floppies in recent years with some of these and had no obvious problems. The obvious tool to use, among a million others variations, would be DISKCOPY: http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/diskcopy.htm (Here's some alternatives.) https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35297505/ > -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant > words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) So, just for completeness, (direct or indirect) links to a bunch of (Free)DOS floppy images are found below here: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35557316/ Keep in mind that a 1.44 MB floppy doesn't hold many files (e.g. a full FD "BASE" won't fit) and isn't actively used by most users anymore (even in FreeDOS circles). Heck, floppies aren't even made anymore, and most modern x86 machines lack the drives (although you can probably still buy a USB floppy drive like I did). Thus it's somewhat ignored in favor of newer, more popular media. So there is no "full" install via floppy, thus you must figure things out manually (for the most part). Networking (using a working packet driver) helps tremendously. Otherwise you're stuck with copying manually (sneakernet). -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Thanks. I'll try. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Jerome Shidel Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:17 AM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk > On Mar 23, 2017, at 11:56 PM, Felix Miata wrote: > > I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip > "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, > 2847 > 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded > image > would not fit here either. I see where the confusion may be coming from. After formatting a floppy image using FreeDOS, it states: 1,474,560 bytes total disk space (disk size) 1,456,664 bytes available on disk (free clusters) It would appear that the number 1457664 is the usable empty free space on the disk once it has been low level formatted and then formatted with the standard DOS file system. So, you probably do have a correct sized floppy diskette. However, you will need to use the appropriate tool to place the floppy image file onto the diskette. Other messages in this thread mention programs like rawrite & dd. These all work very well for this task. Jerome -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
I see. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Eric Auer Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 11:38 AM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi Felix and Dennis, > I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip > "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, > 2847 > 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded > image > would not fit here either. That is a misunderstanding. The FLOPPY really is 80 tracks, 2 sides, 18 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector: 1474560 bytes is correct. However, if you want to put a FILE on a floppy, then the maximum size for the FILE is less, because some space is used by the FAT filesystem. So 1457664 is the size left for you to put files on. This is why the boot floppy disk image has to be copied with some special tools (Linux: dd, DOS: diskcopy, Windows: ..., Mac: ...) which copy contents, filesystem, boot sector etc. all at once. This also is why you do not see files IN that single image file in FD12FLOPPY.zip: You would have to "open" the file as a FAT filesystem to see the files that you will later see on your disk after putting the diskimage as a whole on the floppy. If we would offer the files separately in the ZIP, you would be able to see and edit them at once, which is good, BUT you would need a separate tool to install a boot sector to make it bootable, which is inconvenient, because SYS is only available for DOS and similar tools for other OS (like makebootfat or sys-freedos.pl for Linux) would need specific command line options to produce optimized DOS boot sectors. Regards, Eric -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
ThanksSent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.From: Ralf QuintSent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:15 PMTo: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton wrote: I was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space message. That is to be expected. A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY sector on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes the BPB-BIOS Paramter Block), 14 sectors for the root directory and 18 sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an unformatted disk). To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that writes that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a single file as you have tried. On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the "dd" command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you have another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more than two decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which also does works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or CD-ROMs... Ralf Virus-free. www.avast.com -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
I downloaded and installed WinImage 9.0 on my win98 computer. It has a floppy drive. I successfully wrote the img file to a floppy.Another issue occurred to me. My cd-rom drive is a SCSI external type.The new boot floppy has an fdconfig.sys and an autoexec.bat file. I'm thinking I need to add lines to both to recognize the SCSI drive when it boots.Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network.From: Ralf QuintSent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:15 PMTo: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton wrote: I was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space message. That is to be expected. A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY sector on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes the BPB-BIOS Paramter Block), 14 sectors for the root directory and 18 sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an unformatted disk). To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that writes that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a single file as you have tried. On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the "dd" command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you have another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more than two decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which also does works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or CD-ROMs... Ralf Virus-free. www.avast.com -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Eric Auer Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 4:33 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi Dennis, > I downloaded and installed WinImage 9.0 on my win98 computer. It has a > floppy drive. I successfully wrote the img file to a floppy. > Another issue occurred to me. My cd-rom drive is a SCSI external type. That might be a problem, depending on your SCSI controller and whether it has good BIOS support etc etc. I assume you refer to the CD-ROM of the PC where you want to install DOS? By the way, does that PC also have another operating system? Do you want to replace that by DOS? Or install both side by side as "dual boot"? The latter requires special steps, the former can mean that current disk contents get overwritten. > The new boot floppy has an fdconfig.sys and an autoexec.bat file. I'm > thinking > I need to add lines to both to recognize the SCSI drive when it boots. If you have good DOS drivers for the drive and know how to configure them, then you can do that. If you plan to install DOS on a computer where you already have or can install some operating system with easy internet, then I would recommend another method: Copy the ISO file of FreeDOS to a FAT drive on the PC where you want to install DOS and then "mount" it as if it would be the CD of FreeDOS :-) If the boot floppy has no automatic support for that, then I am sure that some extra explanation of this trick could be given by Rugxulo or Jerome, with examples of what to put where in fdconfig and autoexec on the boot floppy :-) The idea is that you need no hardware specific drivers at all to open the ISO if you already have it on the future DOS PC, so you avoid all worries about SCSI and CDROM drivers then. You still do need that special ISO driver, of course, but as that is not specific to certain hardware, it is easy to use. Cheers, Eric -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Check! Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Eric Auer Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 5:41 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi Dennis, > The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently has MS-DOS 6.22 as > its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my > installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice > FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE. Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS. Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs. Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can use the backups to repair the damage :-) Regards, Eric -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
My internal hard drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The entire contents of the C:\DOS directory is backed up on drive D. I also have an MS-DOS boot disk that includes my current autoexec.bat and config.sys files. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Jerome Shidel Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:05 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk > On Mar 24, 2017, at 6:40 PM, Eric Auer wrote: > > > Hi Dennis, > >> The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently has MS-DOS 6.22 as >> its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my >> installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice >> FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE. > > Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI > and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get > used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines > from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config > of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys > MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax > for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS. I'd advise just plugging in his needed lines into the new configuration files. But, what ever is easiest. > > Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to > tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing > C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs If his old MS-DOS install is not under the FDOS\ directory (unless changed in advanced mode), it will just ignore it. That goes for other directories as well. If the existing target directory (Like FDOS\) for the OS already exists, it will be backed up and the cleaned out. > Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all > files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can > use the backups to repair the damage :-) Yes, always backup! Jerome -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I use Laplink. I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting Arachne online. It reports low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker several times. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Rugxulo Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:17 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi, On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: > > The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only > OS. > My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The > SCSI > drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of > MSCDEX.EXE. If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs, sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up several times! It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might make backing up files a lot easier. If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large drives.) You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you: http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/ -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
When I try to use Arachne I turn off the SCSI drives and reboot so the SCSI drivers don't load. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Ralf Quint Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:43 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk On 3/24/2017 4:36 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: > I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I > use Laplink. I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting > Arachne online. It reports low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker > several times. Using FAT32 does not help you in seeing drives and files on another computer, either via laplink or by other means. This is either handled by the program itself (as in the case of Laplink) or it is matter of the network redirector being used... As for being low on memory, the main source of your problems are likely being the use of the SCSI/ASPI drivers as you mentioned in a previous post. Those things are/were huge in terms of DOS in general. FreeDOS won't give you here much of an advantage over any other DOS... Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Also, I'm curious. The 486 is not my main computer. It is a hobby project. While I would be disappointed is anything was lost in the transition, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'm taking a break now. Please don't be offended if you post something and I don't respond immediately. I will let you all know how this works out. Dennis Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Rugxulo Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:17 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi, On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: > > The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currently has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only > OS. > My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The > SCSI > drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of > MSCDEX.EXE. If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs, sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up several times! It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might make backing up files a lot easier. If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large drives.) You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you: http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/ -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Don't need a network card with a dial-up modem. As for packet driver, Arachne comes with some. I am definately willing to try other browsers. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Rugxulo Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:44 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi, On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 6:36 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: > I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I > use Laplink. Okay, but that's only the kernel (and boot sector to load it), not all of the other files. Any single floppy could handle that minimal "install" for you. > I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting Arachne online. It > reports > low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker several times. Unlikely to help much by itself, but who knows. Not to discourage use of Arachne by any means, but there are other web browsers as well, e.g. Links2 (which is 386+ DPMI, thus less stingy about memory): http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/ (grab links-2.14.exe and links.crt) But, again, that assumes a working packet driver and supported network card. So you do actually have one?? -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Thanks Eric. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Eric Auer Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:21 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk A backup on the same disk but different partitions does not really help you if things go really wrong, but as you say, data loss would be no real problem for you... You should probably backup at least the DOS SCSI drivers though ;-) Jerome also mentioned the drivers as being the most backup worthy files. As Jerome wrote, you can simply install to C:\FDOS and leave most of the rest of C: and D: unharmed. Outside the FDOS directory, only the config files (autoexec / config / fdconfig / similar) and boot files (kernel, maybe command) in the root directory of C:\ and the boot sector should get overwritten, not much else to worry about UNLESS you format or fdisk... In which case everything would be gone. As you already have some DOS (here: MS DOS) on the PC, I agree with Jerome that "not booted update" is worth a trying for a "smoother" change to FreeDOS. I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or "no advantage to MS DOS". Examples of advantages: Several drivers are smaller in RAM compared to MS DOS versions, FreeDOS supports FAT32 and LBA :-) In particular, this means that you can (if your BIOS is not too old) harddisks up to 2 TB size and partitions of many GB size without problems. Regards, Eric > My internal hard drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The entire > contents of the C:\DOS directory is backed up on drive D. I also have > an MS-DOS boot disk that includes my current autoexec.bat and > config.sys files. -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Thanks to everyone on the FreeDOS list who tried to help me. I learned a few things. After careful consideration I decided to go in a different direction. I installed MS-DOS 7.10. It is now running smoothly on my 486 laptop. I had to set up the SCSI drives by writing a few lines into autoexec.bat and one into config.sys. Happy computing. On 25/03/2017, Rugxulo wrote: > Hi, > > On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 7:20 PM, Eric Auer wrote: >> >> I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or "no advantage to MS >> DOS". > > If you already have the original gold standard of DOSes, i.e. MS-DOS > (which was widely tested and hugely popular, by far the most > ubiquitous DOS), then you don't urgently "need" any other DOS clone at > all, period. > > Various DOS clones exist, and they all have minor advantages, but > overall they work the same (no extra APIs offered, no utilizing newer > advanced cpu features). For common DOS software (and loadable > drivers), they all behave effectively the same (more or less) on any > decent DOS kernel. > > Reasons not to use MS-DOS? It's unsupported and proprietary and harder to > find. > Reasons not to use FreeDOS? You just want to run the exact same > software that already runs perfectly on your current MS-DOS install. > > Heck, apparently there are still people using TAWK, which is > (apparently) proprietary and long dead. One guy was complaining that > GAWK (aka, GPL) still doesn't 100% equal TAWK features despite being > 20 years newer. Sound familiar? Old habits die hard. > > (In hindsight, it's best to not write proprietary, non-standard, > unportable software at all, if you have a choice. Although nothing > lasts forever, not even standards, it does certainly help to try to be > portable/cross-platform from the start.) > > -- > Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most > engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
Thanks but I don't think it will matter in this case. The old Epson ActionNote laptop doesn't have a sound card or even a slot for one. I can listen to recorded sound by plugging phones or speakers directly into the CD-ROM. Dennis Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: Dale E Sterner Sent: Monday, March 27, 2017 8:59 AM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk You might have trouble with sound drivers. MS dos 7.1 wanted me to use windows to install one so that I could enjoy Windows but no windows to use. FREEDOS doesn't care. DS On Sun, 26 Mar 2017 13:58:08 -0500 Dennis Fenton writes: > Thanks to everyone on the FreeDOS list who tried to help me. I > learned > a few things. After careful consideration I decided to go in a > different direction. I installed MS-DOS 7.10. It is now running > smoothly on my 486 laptop. I had to set up the SCSI drives by > writing > a few lines into autoexec.bat and one into config.sys. > Happy computing. > > On 25/03/2017, Rugxulo wrote: > > Hi, > > > > On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 7:20 PM, Eric Auer > wrote: > >> > >> I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or "no advantage > to MS > >> DOS". > > > > If you already have the original gold standard of DOSes, i.e. > MS-DOS > > (which was widely tested and hugely popular, by far the most > > ubiquitous DOS), then you don't urgently "need" any other DOS > clone at > > all, period. > > > > Various DOS clones exist, and they all have minor advantages, but > > overall they work the same (no extra APIs offered, no utilizing > newer > > advanced cpu features). For common DOS software (and loadable > > drivers), they all behave effectively the same (more or less) on > any > > decent DOS kernel. > > > > Reasons not to use MS-DOS? It's unsupported and proprietary and > harder to > > find. > > Reasons not to use FreeDOS? You just want to run the exact same > > software that already runs perfectly on your current MS-DOS > install. > > > > Heck, apparently there are still people using TAWK, which is > > (apparently) proprietary and long dead. One guy was complaining > that > > GAWK (aka, GPL) still doesn't 100% equal TAWK features despite > being > > 20 years newer. Sound familiar? Old habits die hard. > > > > (In hindsight, it's best to not write proprietary, non-standard, > > unportable software at all, if you have a choice. Although nothing > > lasts forever, not even standards, it does certainly help to try > to be > > portable/cross-platform from the start.) > > > > > - - > > Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most > > engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot > > ___ > > Freedos-user mailing list > > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > > > - - > Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most > engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > **>>>> >From Dale Sterner - MS organic chemistry http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jo00975a052 ***>>>> Police Urge Americans to Carry This With Them at All Times The Observer http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/58d91a79e59d71a797f86st03duc -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
If you read back in this thread, the problem was dealt with at length and solved. Dennis Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. Original Message From: userbeit...@abwesend.de Sent: Saturday, April 8, 2017 3:38 AM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk On 2017-03-24 03:46, Dennis Fenton wrote: > Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy > img. It doesn't fit! > So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a > dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS. This is not possible. The FLOPPY.img contained in http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip is exactly 1474560 bytes big, which is the size of a 1.44 MB floppy disk. If this image doesn't fit, no 1.44 MB image will fit on your floppy. In other words: the image is the right size and something else must be wrong. And there is no need to be rude. "Pilot error" is correct in this case, and is meant to make you think - maybe it is you after all who is wrong. To make it absolutely clear: I can confirm that this image WILL FIT on any 1.44 MB floppy drive. I cannot confirm if it will actually boot (I didn't test this... yet... or not that I recall at the moment) BUT it is the right size. Thus it must be you who is wrong with the "doesn't fit" statement. Even so, I understand very much that installing FreeDOS is not trivial since you need to account for so many different hardware cases. And it is very often just a driver that is missing; the original - long lost - driver from the driver disk supplied with the original hardware (IDE, SCSI, CDROM, ...) for DOS, OS/2 and Windows 3.1/NT 3.x... those were the days... Back then you would get the *then new* hardware with the driver on floppy. Trying to install FreeDOS now, about two decades later, makes it hard to get all the driver stuff (who preserves such things?) and configurations right (jumpers, C/H/S in the BIOS etc. - who preserves manuals and quick installation guides?). Good luck! I hope you will figure it out! (As I hope to find the time to make my 486 run FreeDOS eventually... I didn't find the time since after the New Years holidays...) Userbeitrag. The answer from Dennis is correct: > On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: >> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for >> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with. >> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot >> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external >> SCSI CD drive. >> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a >> 1.44 floppy. > The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be > installed on a CDROM. > > If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from > floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to > boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD > you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See > the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 »" > > See http://www.freedos.org/download/ > >> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an >> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it >> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image? >> Do you have a fix for this? > The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions > on the download page. > __ > Dennis -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy img. It doesn't fit! So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS. SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork. a Original Message a From: dmccunney Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 9:26 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: > After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for > MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with. > I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot > floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external > SCSI CD drive. > To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a > 1.44 floppy. The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be installed on a CDROM. If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 +" See http://www.freedos.org/download/ > This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an > organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it > wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image? > Do you have a fix for this? The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions on the download page. __ Dennis -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton No bad sectors. I tried two different freshly formatted disks and ran scandisk on them just to be sure. SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork. a Original Message a From: Felix Miata Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:30 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Dennis Fenton composed on 2017-03-23 20:32 (UTC-0500): > After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for > MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with. > I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot > floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external > SCSI CD drive. > To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a > 1.44 floppy. How much "too big"? Is it because your floppy has bad sectors. Floppies without bad sectors are rather uncommon around here. For this reason I try to avoid image writes, which demand all sectors in the media's spec be usable, and a format that worked once may well be that last the media will accept without error. > This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an > organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it > wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image? > Do you have a fix for this?-- "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/ -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton Thanks. I'll try diskcopy. SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork. a Original Message a From: Rugxulo Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:49 AM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi, On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 10:56 PM, Felix Miata wrote: > > I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip > "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847 > 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded image > would not fit here either. I downloaded the above (FD12FLOPPY.zip) and two of my own images (BARE_DOS and MetaDOS). All of them have the same size (1474560). A simple "file *.img" tells me that they all have 2880 sectors. I've written a few real floppies in recent years with some of these and had no obvious problems. The obvious tool to use, among a million others variations, would be DISKCOPY: http://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/base/diskcopy.htm (Here's some alternatives.) https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35297505/ > -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant > words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) So, just for completeness, (direct or indirect) links to a bunch of (Free)DOS floppy images are found below here: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/35557316/ Keep in mind that a 1.44 MB floppy doesn't hold many files (e.g. a full FD "BASE" won't fit) and isn't actively used by most users anymore (even in FreeDOS circles). Heck, floppies aren't even made anymore, and most modern x86 machines lack the drives (although you can probably still buy a USB floppy drive like I did). Thus it's somewhat ignored in favor of newer, more popular media. So there is no "full" install via floppy, thus you must figure things out manually (for the most part). Networking (using a working packet driver) helps tremendously. Otherwise you're stuck with copying manually (sneakernet). -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton Exactly SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork. a Original Message a From: Felix Miata Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:56 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded image would not fit here either. -- "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/ -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with. I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external SCSI CD drive. To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a 1.44 floppy. This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image? Do you have a fix for this? -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton --===8131631414762694562== Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I downloaded and installed WinImage 9.0 on my win98 computer. It has a floppy drive. I successfully wrote the img file to a floppy.Another issue occurred to me. My cd-rom drive is a SCSI external type.The new boot floppy has an fdconfig.sys and an autoexecrCA.bat file. I'm thinking I need to add lines to both to recognize the SCSI drive when it boots. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. From: Ralf QuintSent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:15 PMTo: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton wrote: I was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space message. That is to be expected. A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY sector on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes the BPB-BIOS Paramter Block), 14 sectors for the root directory and 18 sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an unformatted disk). To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that writes that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a single file as you have tried. On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the "dd" command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you have another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more than two decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which also does works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or CD-ROMs... Ralf https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=icon"; target="_blank">https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif"; width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;"> Virus-free. https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=link"; target="_blank" style="color: #4453ea;">www.avast.com --===8131631414762694562== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot --===8131631414762694562== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --===8131631414762694562==-- --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE. Sent-afrom-amy-aBlackBerry-a10-asmartphone-aon-athe-aBell-anetwork. -a Original Message -a From: Eric Auer Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 4:33 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi Dennis, > I downloaded and installed WinImage 9.0 on my win98 computer. It has a > floppy drive. I successfully wrote the img file to a floppy. > Another issue occurred to me. My cd-rom drive is a SCSI external type. That might be a problem, depending on your SCSI controller and whether it has good BIOS support etc etc. I assume you refer to the CD-ROM of the PC where you want to install DOS? By the way, does that PC also have another operating system? Do you want to replace that by DOS? Or install both side by side as "dual boot"? The latter requires special steps, the former can mean that current disk contents get overwritten. > The new boot floppy has an fdconfig.sys and an autoexecrCA.bat file. I'm thinking > I need to add lines to both to recognize the SCSI drive when it boots. If you have good DOS drivers for the drive and know how to configure them, then you can do that. If you plan to install DOS on a computer where you already have or can install some operating system with easy internet, then I would recommend another method: Copy the ISO file of FreeDOS to a FAT drive on the PC where you want to install DOS and then "mount" it as if it would be the CD of FreeDOS :-) If the boot floppy has no automatic support for that, then I am sure that some extra explanation of this trick could be given by Rugxulo or Jerome, with examples of what to put where in fdconfig and autoexec on the boot floppy :-) The idea is that you need no hardware specific drivers at all to open the ISO if you already have it on the future DOS PC, so you avoid all worries about SCSI and CDROM drivers then. You still do need that special ISO driver, of course, but as that is not specific to certain hardware, it is easy to use. Cheers, Eric -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton Check! Sent-afrom-amy-aBlackBerry-a10-asmartphone-aon-athe-aBell-anetwork. -a Original Message -a From: Eric Auer Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 5:41 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi Dennis, > The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as > its only OS. My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my > installed programs. The SCSI drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice > FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE. Well in that case, you can simply use the existing DOS SCSI and CDROM drivers :-) You can even keep MSCDEX until you get used to SHSUCDX later... And you can use your existing lines from autoexec and config for the autoexec and (fd-) config of FreeDOS. Only if you were using the MS DOS config sys MENU system, you will have to change some things - syntax for menus works in a different way in FreeDOS. Maybe Jerome and Rugxulo can give some hints about how to tell the installer to only install FreeDOS to the existing C: drive of your MS DOS PC without damaging other programs. Even then, it is always very good to have a backup of all files before updating. So if anything goes wrong, you can use the backups to repair the damage :-) Regards, Eric -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton Thanks. I'll try. SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork. a Original Message a From: Jerome Shidel Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:17 AM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk > On Mar 23, 2017, at 11:56 PM, Felix Miata wrote: > > I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip > "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847 > 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded image > would not fit here either. I see where the confusion may be coming from. After formatting a floppy image using FreeDOS, it states: 1,474,560 bytes total disk space (disk size) 1,456,664 bytes available on disk (free clusters) It would appear that the number 1457664 is the usable empty free space on the disk once it has been low level formatted and then formatted with the standard DOS file system. So, you probably do have a correct sized floppy diskette. However, you will need to use the appropriate tool to place the floppy image file onto the diskette. Other messages in this thread mention programs like rawrite & dd. These all work very well for this task. Jerome -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton I see. SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork. a Original Message a From: Eric Auer Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 11:38 AM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi Felix and Dennis, > I just looked inside http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip > "boot floppy", and a 3.5" 1.44M floppy. My floppy has 1457664 total bytes, 2847 > 512 byte sectors. The image downloaded is 1474560 bytes, so the downloaded image > would not fit here either. That is a misunderstanding. The FLOPPY really is 80 tracks, 2 sides, 18 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector: 1474560 bytes is correct. However, if you want to put a FILE on a floppy, then the maximum size for the FILE is less, because some space is used by the FAT filesystem. So 1457664 is the size left for you to put files on. This is why the boot floppy disk image has to be copied with some special tools (Linux: dd, DOS: diskcopy, Windows: ..., Mac: ...) which copy contents, filesystem, boot sector etc. all at once. This also is why you do not see files IN that single image file in FD12FLOPPY.zip: You would have to "open" the file as a FAT filesystem to see the files that you will later see on your disk after putting the diskimage as a whole on the floppy. If we would offer the files separately in the ZIP, you would be able to see and edit them at once, which is good, BUT you would need a separate tool to install a boot sector to make it bootable, which is inconvenient, because SYS is only available for DOS and similar tools for other OS (like makebootfat or sys-freedos.pl for Linux) would need specific command line options to produce optimized DOS boot sectors. Regards, Eric -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton --===1415927088984765351== Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thanks Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Bell network. From: Ralf QuintSent: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:15 PMTo: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.netReply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS.Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk ima ge too big for a disk On 3/24/2017 5:42 AM, Dennis Fenton wrote: I was just trying to simply copy it. I get an insufficient space message. That is to be expected. A disk image is exactly that, a sector by sector image of EVERY sector on the disk. That includes those of the boot sector (includes the BPB-BIOS Paramter Block), 14 sectors for the root directory and 18 sectors for the two copies of FAT12. Those 33 sectors leave on a formatted 1.44MB floppy disk 2847 sectors (out of 2880 sectors of an unformatted disk). To write a floppy disk IMAGE to a floppy, you need a program that writes that image SECTOR FOR SECTOR back to the disk, not as a single file as you have tried. On Unix/Linux systems, the easiest way to achive that is to use the "dd" command or WinRaWrite on a Windows system (or rawrite if you have another DOS only system). I personally used for probably more than two decades by now a Shareware program called WinImage, which also does works nicely to create quickly images from floppy disks or CD-ROMs... Ralf https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=icon"; target="_blank">https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/icons/icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif"; width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;"> Virus-free. https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=link"; target="_blank" style="color: #4453ea;">www.avast.com --===1415927088984765351== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot --===1415927088984765351== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --===1415927088984765351==-- --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton Thanks Eric. SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork. a Original Message a From: Eric Auer Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 7:21 PM To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk A backup on the same disk but different partitions does not really help you if things go really wrong, but as you say, data loss would be no real problem for you... You should probably backup at least the DOS SCSI drivers though ;-) Jerome also mentioned the drivers as being the most backup worthy files. As Jerome wrote, you can simply install to C:\FDOS and leave most of the rest of C: and D: unharmed. Outside the FDOS directory, only the config files (autoexec / config / fdconfig / similar) and boot files (kernel, maybe command) in the root directory of C:\ and the boot sector should get overwritten, not much else to worry about UNLESS you format or fdisk... In which case everything would be gone. As you already have some DOS (here: MS DOS) on the PC, I agree with Jerome that "not booted update" is worth a trying for a "smoother" change to FreeDOS. I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or "no advantage to MS DOS". Examples of advantages: Several drivers are smaller in RAM compared to MS DOS versions, FreeDOS supports FAT32 and LBA :-) In particular, this means that you can (if your BIOS is not too old) harddisks up to 2 TB size and partitions of many GB size without problems. Regards, Eric > My internal hard drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The entire > contents of the C:\DOS directory is backed up on drive D. I also have > an MS-DOS boot disk that includes my current autoexec.bat and > config.sys files. -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton Also, I'm curious. The 486 is not my main computer. It is a hobby project. While I would be disappointed is anything was lost in the transition, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'm taking a break now. Please don't be offended if you post something and I don't respond immediately. I will let you all know how this works out. Dennis Sent-afrom-amy-aBlackBerry-a10-asmartphone-aon-athe-aBell-anetwork. -a Original Message -a From: Rugxulo Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:17 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi, On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: > > The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only OS. > My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The SCSI > drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE. If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs, sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up several times! It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might make backing up files a lot easier. If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large drives.) You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you: http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/ -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I use Laplink. I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting Arachne online. It reports low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker several times. Sent-afrom-amy-aBlackBerry-a10-asmartphone-aon-athe-aBell-anetwork. -a Original Message -a From: Rugxulo Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:17 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi, On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: > > The 486 that I plan to use FreeDOS on currentlyrCA has MS-DOS 6.22 as its only OS. > My plan is to completely replace it but keep all my installed programs. The SCSI > drivers are all in C:\SCSI and I notice FreeDOS has its own equivalent of MSCDEX.EXE. If you have anything more important than games (and/or don't have the original installation media for them and/or the disks for the version of MS-DOS you're using), then maybe you shouldn't quite install FreeDOS "just yet"! Especially any personal files (personal docs, sources, game saves, registration keys), make sure to back those up several times! It might be safer to use a separate hard drive entirely for FreeDOS so that you don't risk deleting anything important. You never did mention if you have a working packet driver (I'll assume not), but it might make backing up files a lot easier. If you just want to play around with FreeDOS, just use a bootable floppy (as suggested), which will minimally let you use the FD kernel with all of your pre-existing utils. Honestly, if you already have MS-DOS, then you probably aren't the target audience for FreeDOS at all. (Not to be pessimistic, but FreeDOS doesn't normally offer much more, by itself, over MS-DOS. Although it does support FAT32, unlike MS-DOS v6 [FAT12/16 only], which can be more efficient for large drives.) You don't technically "need" two different kernels (but maybe you want to compare). In that case, MetaKern may be of interest to you: http://freedos.gds.tuwien.ac.at/freedos/news/technote/184.html https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/boot/metakern/ -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton Don't need a network card with a dial-up modem. As for packet driver, Arachne comes with some. I am definately willing to try other browsers. SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork. a Original Message a From: Rugxulo Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 6:44 PM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk Hi, On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 6:36 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: > I want the fat32 in order to see drives and files on my win98 computer if I use Laplink. Okay, but that's only the kernel (and boot sector to load it), not all of the other files. Any single floppy could handle that minimal "install" for you. > I was also hoping FreeDOS will do a better job of getting Arachne online. It reports > low memory with MS-DOS. I have run memmaker several times. Unlikely to help much by itself, but who knows. Not to discourage use of Arachne by any means, but there are other web browsers as well, e.g. Links2 (which is 386+ DPMI, thus less stingy about memory): http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/ (grab links-2.14.exe and links.crt) But, again, that assumes a working packet driver and supported network card. So you do actually have one?? -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton Thanks to everyone on the FreeDOS list who tried to help me. I learned a few things. After careful consideration I decided to go in a different direction. I installed MS-DOS 7.10. It is now running smoothly on my 486 laptop. I had to set up the SCSI drives by writing a few lines into autoexec.bat and one into config.sys. Happy computing. On 25/03/2017, Rugxulo wrote: > Hi, > > On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 7:20 PM, Eric Auer wrote: >> >> I disagree about FreeDOS being "not ready yet" or "no advantage to MS >> DOS". > > If you already have the original gold standard of DOSes, i.e. MS-DOS > (which was widely tested and hugely popular, by far the most > ubiquitous DOS), then you don't urgently "need" any other DOS clone at > all, period. > > Various DOS clones exist, and they all have minor advantages, but > overall they work the same (no extra APIs offered, no utilizing newer > advanced cpu features). For common DOS software (and loadable > drivers), they all behave effectively the same (more or less) on any > decent DOS kernel. > > Reasons not to use MS-DOS? It's unsupported and proprietary and harder to > find. > Reasons not to use FreeDOS? You just want to run the exact same > software that already runs perfectly on your current MS-DOS install. > > Heck, apparently there are still people using TAWK, which is > (apparently) proprietary and long dead. One guy was complaining that > GAWK (aka, GPL) still doesn't 100% equal TAWK features despite being > 20 years newer. Sound familiar? Old habits die hard. > > (In hindsight, it's best to not write proprietary, non-standard, > unportable software at all, if you have a choice. Although nothing > lasts forever, not even standards, it does certainly help to try to be > portable/cross-platform from the start.) > > -- > Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most > engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot > ___ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk
From: Dennis Fenton If you read back in this thread, the problem was dealt with at length and solved. Dennis SentafromamyaBlackBerrya10asmartphoneaonatheaBellanetwork. a Original Message a From: userbeit...@abwesend.de Sent: Saturday, April 8, 2017 3:38 AM To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Reply To: Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS. Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk On 2017-03-24 03:46, Dennis Fenton wrote: > Read what I wrote. I burned the iso to a CD. I also downloaded the floppy img. It doesn't fit! > So my first interaction on this forum is from someone who treats me like a dummy. Perhaps another reason to say to Hell with FreeDOS. This is not possible. The FLOPPY.img contained in http://www.freedos.org/download/download/FD12FLOPPY.zip is exactly 1474560 bytes big, which is the size of a 1.44 MB floppy disk. If this image doesn't fit, no 1.44 MB image will fit on your floppy. In other words: the image is the right size and something else must be wrong. And there is no need to be rude. "Pilot error" is correct in this case, and is meant to make you think - maybe it is you after all who is wrong. To make it absolutely clear: I can confirm that this image WILL FIT on any 1.44 MB floppy drive. I cannot confirm if it will actually boot (I didn't test this... yet... or not that I recall at the moment) BUT it is the right size. Thus it must be you who is wrong with the "doesn't fit" statement. Even so, I understand very much that installing FreeDOS is not trivial since you need to account for so many different hardware cases. And it is very often just a driver that is missing; the original - long lost - driver from the driver disk supplied with the original hardware (IDE, SCSI, CDROM, ...) for DOS, OS/2 and Windows 3.1/NT 3.x... those were the days... Back then you would get the *then new* hardware with the driver on floppy. Trying to install FreeDOS now, about two decades later, makes it hard to get all the driver stuff (who preserves such things?) and configurations right (jumpers, C/H/S in the BIOS etc. - who preserves manuals and quick installation guides?). Good luck! I hope you will figure it out! (As I hope to find the time to make my 486 run FreeDOS eventually... I didn't find the time since after the New Years holidays...) Userbeitrag. The answer from Dennis is correct: > On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 9:32 PM, Dennis Fenton wrote: >> After some research I decided FreeDOS would be a good replacement for >> MS-DOS 6.22 on an old 486 I'm playing with. >> I downloaded and burned to CD the iso. I also downloaded the boot >> floppy disk image because the old 486 will not boot from the external >> SCSI CD drive. >> To my dismay I found that the boot disk image is too big to fit on a >> 1.44 floppy. > The ISO image isn't *intended* to fit on a floppy. It expects to be > installed on a CDROM. > > If you have a machine that *can't* boot form CD and must boot from > floppy, there's a boot floppy zip file you can extract to floppy to > boot from. That assumes the rest of the distribution will be on a CD > you can access from FreeDOS once you've booted from the floppy. See > the Boot Floppy option under "How to install FreeDOS 1.2 +" > > See http://www.freedos.org/download/ > >> This makes me question the decision to switch. How in the world can an >> organization dedicated to promoting this better version of DOS get it >> wrong when it comes to the size of a disk image? >> Do you have a fix for this? > The problem is pilot error. Please read the applicable instructions > on the download page. > __ > Dennis -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user --- Internet Rex 2.29 * Origin: capcity2.synchro.net - 502/875-8938 (276:10/901) --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux ListGate 1.3 * Capitol City Online - Frankfort, KY - telnet://capitolcityonline.net -- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
