Re: [Freedos-user] Hard disk drivers - UltraDMA
Hi! There is also Eric's LBACACHE. There is a link at www.freedos.org. Bye, Flo -- Unofficial Dr-DOS page http://www.drdos.org --- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Discover Easy Linux Migration Strategies from IBM. Find simple to follow Roadmaps, straightforward articles, informative Webcasts and more! Get everything you need to get up to speed, fast. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7477alloc_id=16492op=click ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] TDSK, SRDISK etc.
Hi Bernd, I need a simple reliable RAMDISK that can automatically set an Environment variable to it's drive letter. batchcode is really easy: @echo off shrdrv86 /D:12400K,D if errorlevel 27 goto end if %errorlevel%==0 goto end for %%x in ( D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ) do if errorlevel H%%x set extradrv=%%x: Hmm, this is the kind of thing I'm trying to avoid! Is it not possible for the RAMDISK program to set an environment variable instead of an ErrorLevel? -- Gerry Hickman (London UK) --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] re: FreeDOS FDISK 1.2.1-k not working
Hi Eric, -download ISO to c:\fdbootcd.iso -create bootdisk -boot from bootdisk, which should find the ISO file automatically. I'd rather download a 1.44Mb file and just grab the file (or files) I need. Then you should get: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/beta9sr1/disksets/1440KB/ I think you misunderstood this in the context of the thread as a whole. We were comparing ways of quickly getting a FreeDOS file. Bernd suggested a series of steps using the CD ISO file and I was saying it's easier to just use the 1.44Mb IMG files. Then you kind of said You should get the 1.44Mb IMG files:) -- Gerry Hickman (London UK) --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] re: FreeDOS FDISK 1.2.1-k not working
Gerry Hickman schreef: I think you misunderstood this in the context of the thread as a whole. We were comparing ways of quickly getting a FreeDOS file. Bernd suggested a series of steps using the CD ISO file and I was saying it's easier to just use the 1.44Mb IMG files. Then you kind of said You should get the 1.44Mb IMG files:) indeed. Also there's a difference of what people want *core: get ODIN, do FDISK/FORMAT/SYS C: and system is ready. *basic: get ODIN *basic+: get Beta9 bootdisk and 2 BASE data disks (diskset 1..8) *full: get ISO and if needed also bootdisk. Boot from whichever boots on your system. Now install and get a complete(well..) FreeDOS environment installed for me it's simple: get ISO and boot VMware. for real systems with network card or modem it will be easy: get 1.44MB floppy, load packetdriver or PPP program, then download the ISO to ramdisk (systems with 16MB+ RAM) or harddisk, and install. but currently I broke things by mistake it seems in my development bootdisk :( Sometimes I really hate the complexity of my batchfiles and the limitations of batchcoding! :) Bernd --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS FDISK issue with Windows Build
Hi Bernd, Picking up on this topic, I ran into a serious problem today when trying to use the FreeDOS SYS command to fix the problem discussed below. The summary of the original problem is this: Using DOS 6.22 [FDISK FAT16 FORMAT] creates a C: drive that you can then use to install Windows NT/2000/XP with the real-mode setup program WINNT.EXE In the above case, Windows will replace the DOS 6.22 boot sector and will not try to offer any previous o/s on the boot loader menu (BOOT.INI) when Windows has finished installing. However, when using FreeDOS's [FDISK FAT32 FORMAT (not with /s)] to create the C: drive, Windows suddenly decides there's a previous o/s and backs up it's boot sector and then creates a boot loader menu with 30 second time-out (BOOT.INI). This is the last thing you need when creating automated hands-free builds! I think the reason is because FreeDOS's boot-sector from FORMAT is not the same as that of MS-DOS, so Windows does not recognize it as an upgradable Microsoft o/s. Today I tried the following, note use of FreeDOS SYS (hard drive already has an MBR, DellDiags are on first primary but are not an issue, they're always there) 1. FDISK /DELETE:2 (get rid of WinXP NTFS on second primary) 2. FDISK /PRI:2000 3. FDISK /ACTIVATE:2 (make new second primary active) reboot 3. FORMAT C: /a (4k cluster size) 4. SYS a: c: BOOTONLY (put FreeDOS bootsector onto c: drv) 5. Start Windows real-mode setup program Here is where it goes BADLY wrong! When the system reboots, it tries to boot the C drive, and gives the following error on a black screen: Disk Error Press any key to restart I've never seen that error before, but after some probing, I think this text is embedded in the NT/2000/XP boot sector. So it seems Windows had replaced the boot sector (as expected), BUT it was unable to find it's own boot loader and kernel files. I think use of FreeDOS SYS somehow caused this problem, but I can't think how or why. I later ran FreeDOS format to erase the broken C: drive and clean up it's boot sector. I then ran Windows real-mode setup again, and this time it worked fine (except for the original issue of the previous o/s). I did not try to use FreeDOS SYS this second time. Additional note: As an experiment (before this last step) I decided to use FreeDOS SYS to replace the broken NT boot sector to see if it would fix it. FreeDOS SYS has an option to grab a 512b boot sector from a file and write it to a drive (very nice), so I got an official Win2k boot sector into a file called bootsect.bin and told SYS to install it to the C: drive, and even told it to use NTLDR instead of FreeDOS KERNEL.SYS The SYS command did it's thing, and reported the new boot sector had been installed, but when I tried to boot the C: drive, it did NOT look like the NT boot sector! It was saying FreeDOS can't find KERNEL.SYS. Hmmm, something not right there. Gerry Hickman schreef: FreeDOS Beta9sr1: 1. FDISK /CLEARALL 2. FDISK /MBR 3. FDISK /PRI:2000 4. reboot 5. FORMAT C: 6. Start real-mode windows setup program 7. Windows is installed, but now it presents a boot loader menu every time it starts with a 30 second timeout. Windows has even kindly saved the booting information from my previous o/s to a file called BOOTSECT.DOS, and guess what's inside it...? C: is NTFS, FAT16 or FAT32? Unknown bootsectors are indeed saved to file called BOOTSECT.DOS FDISK only creates MBR. Format creates a filesystem. MS FORMAT creates filesystem, then puts a bootsector identical to that created by the FreeDOS SYS program on that filesystem. FD FORMAT creates a bootsector which only reports something like This is not a bootable partition. FreeDOS SYS creates a working bootsector. Can you test some mixed operating system utilities? please first obtain the FreeDOS SYS program (rename to FDSYS.COM) from: http://fdos.org/AutoIndex/index?dir=kernel/file=SYS.dev.COM Scenario 1: DOS 6.22 procedure, but do FDSYS C: C: /BOOTONLY Scenario 2: DOS 6.22 procedure, but do FDISK /MBR (FreeDOS FDISK) Scenario 3: combine 12 Scenario 4: FREEDOS, then use MS SYS or MS FORMAT for formatting Scenario 5: FREEDOS, then use FDISK /MBR (MS FORMAT) Scenario 6: combine 45 I am most interested in scenario #1: FREEDOS SYS can create a bootsector for MSDOS, and I wonder what Windows thinks of it, and if it will create a dualboot then If I choose this option Previous Operating System on C:, I see the following text: This is not a bootable disk. Please insert a bootable floppy and try again... lack of a bootsector installed by SYS. Above text done by FD FORMAT Now I'm wondering ... is that text string above FreeDOS related? If so then it seems I'm correct about what's happened. yes Thing is, I never installed FreeDOS, I never used the SYS command, all I did was use FDISK, so it should not think there's a previous o/s on my C drive. formatted: Windows thinks there's a previous OS
Re: [Freedos-user] TDSK, SRDISK etc.
Bernd Blaauw wrote: for %%x in ( D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ) do if Hmm, this is the kind of thing I'm trying to avoid! Is it not possible for the RAMDISK program to set an environment variable instead of an ErrorLevel? so still pretty easy. what are you trying to accomplish? interested in your use of DOS programs :) Well, as I understand it, SRDISK can actually set an Environment variable on exit containing the letter of the assigned RAMDRIVE and this cuts out the enumeration of ErrorLevels or Drive letters, so the batch code would become even easier. -- Gerry Hickman (London UK) --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] TDSK, SRDISK etc.
Nope, hardly any application can change the environment. If you wanted, you could probably modify the source so that it does. --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] re: FreeDOS FDISK 1.2.1-k not working
Hi... for me it's simple: get ISO and boot VMware. for real systems with network card or modem it will be easy: get 1.44MB floppy, load packetdriver or PPP program, then download the ISO to ramdisk (systems with 16MB+ RAM) or harddisk, and install. How about get the ISO and boot the real system? I like the classic method much better. The ISO can either be used to create a CD or can be accessed directly after booting your 1.44MB install-trigger floppy. This will definitely work on more PCs that DOS-networking will. And definitely not everybody has his DOS PC connected to some fast flatrate internet through a network card, while MANY people have CD-ROM drives or at least floppy drive plus enough harddisk space for the ISO in their DOS PCs. Eric --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] re: TDSK, SRDISK etc.
Hi Eric, Hi, I suggest that you do something like: - load the ramdisk and use a known label set olddir=%_cwd% finddisk +RAMDRIVE (or whatever your label is, note: case sensitive) if %errorlevel%==0 goto noRamdiskFound set ramdisk=%_cwd% :noRamdiskFound cdd %olddir% set olddir= - you are done :-) Yes, this looks very nice. Finddisk can also return the found drive letter as errorlevel, but then you need either 20+ if ... errorlevel ... lines or a FOR loop or some bennylevel tricks (which FreeCOM versions support those?). There's a place for %%tokens and all that, but not for my silly RAMDRIVE, it's just to hold a few temp files and the pipe | with MORE. http://www.coli.uni-sb.de/~eric/stuff/soft/specials/finddisk.zip (the binary is 511 bytes big...) smaller than a boot sector! -- Gerry Hickman (London UK) --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] re: FreeDOS FDISK issue with Windows Build
Hi Eric, As we cannot go and steal the MS DOS boot sector, you have to do that yourself ;-). Either use MS DOS SYS or use FreeDOS SYS and a copy of the MS DOS boot sector in a file OK, maybe that's the answer! I'll give it a try. (however, you report that the take boot sector from file failed for you - probably BECAUSE you tried to override the kernel name at the same time, which ONLY works for FreeDOS boot secs). Hmmm, yes that could explain why it didn't work. Does this mean FreeDOS cannot install an NT boot sector and call NTLDR? Disk Error Press any key to restart This is odd. Which sector contained that? Or is it a message from the BIOS? Well, I did some Google searches, and people were saying it's the BIOS, but I didn't believe them, so I looked at the NT boot sector and I'm pretty sure it's a message from the boot sector, NOT the BIOS. I have no idea what triggers this message though, and it's VERY rare. PS: Please rename the FDISK 1.2.1-k not working thread, contents seem to belong to this thread Well that thread was all about booting FreeDOS on an IBM eServer and how to get hold of specific FreeDOS files, whereas this thread is nothing to do with FDISK 1.2.1-k, but rather about boot sectors created by FreeDOS and how Windows deals with them (not!) and is based on FDISK 1.3.0 beta:) -- Gerry Hickman (London UK) --- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects Teams * Testing QA Security * Process Improvement Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
