Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Rugxulo]

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).

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Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Gregg Eshelman]

It is possible to format a floppy a bit over size. Most drives will accommodate 
2 to 4 extra tracks. Depending on the drive and the controller it's possible to 
alter the number of sectors per track, but all tracks must have the same number 
of sectors. Typically, altering the number of sectors renders the format 
non-bootable.

Schenk & Horn CopyStar is one such program. It's old, originally from 1994, but 
it's known to work on Windows 2000, Server 2003 and older. I've not tried it on 
XP and later. Probably not compatible with 64 bit Windows. 
http://www.programfiles.com/Default.asp?LinkId=13681

Microsoft used an over-capacity format they called DMF. For programs (like 
Windows 95) where the first disk had to be bootable it was standard 1.44M.
IBM used a different over-capacity format for OS/2's install disks, but nothing 
included with OS/2 could write data to the disks, despite the inclusion of a 
utility to create blank disks with that format. (The largest all floppy install 
I ever did was OS/2 Warp 3.0, followed by a couple of large updates.)

If only the entire OEM computer industry had wholeheartedly adopted the 2.88M 
floppy, instead of only IBM and Compaq sorta halfway supporting it. "Hey look! 
We're making 2.88M floppy drives standard on ALL our computers! How about YOU, 
Hewlett Packard, Packard Bell, Gateway 2000... *Apple*? You wanna fall behind 
us? Keep using that obsolete 1.44M!"

  From: Felix Miata 
 To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net 
 Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2017 9:57 PM
 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/

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Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[perditionc]

On Mar 23, 2017 9:32 PM, "Dennis Fenton"  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 floppy.
...


What 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
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Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Felix Miata]

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/

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Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a dis

[Dennis Fenton]

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


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Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Dennis Fenton]

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/

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Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[Felix Miata]

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/

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Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a dis

[Thomas Mueller]

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


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Re: [Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[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.

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

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[Freedos-user] boot floppy disk image too big for a disk

[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?

--
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