[Freedos-user] Freedos 1.2 Syslinux kernel.sys not found

[Wolfgang ANdreas Heisele]

I have made a small video to show my issue with freedos 1.2 and syslinux. After 
installing it freedos does not boot because it is looking for kernel.sys in 
c:\fdos\bin\ were there is no such file. Also it seems to be only looking for 
files in c:\ and kernl386.sys renamed and copied to c:\ is not fully working. 
Please, watch the video and tell me what or where kernel.sys should be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH0pMANR5ZU

Otherwise booting into kolibri os works like a charme with this method!

--
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] New year and new drivers

[Mateusz Viste]

On Sun, 01 Jan 2017 22:44:38 +0100, E. Auer wrote:
> One-Time ONLY update of the 5-Mar-2015 drivers provided from SourceForge
> IBiblio.

Does this mean it's actually an update of the open-source branch (with 
source code, GPL and all)? Too bad distribution is so restricted.

Mateusz


--
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] Preload and start installer from installation target?

[Mateusz Viste]

Sounds like the CHS data you noted down might not be "true" CHS (if we 
can talk about "true" CHS at all on a flash device...), but rather LBA-
assisted or "Large-shifted" geometry. Have you forced the disk mode in 
your ~2000 PC when doing the auto-detection? If not, it probably uses LBA 
by default. Most BIOSes I have seen allow to change the geometry mode and 
then display the corresponding CHS values immediately next to it. I'd 
expect your BIOS to have settings like "standard", "Large" and "LBA". The 
one you want for compatibility with your 486 is definitely 
"standard" (meaning 24-bit CHS).

Mateusz



On Mon, 02 Jan 2017 02:33:10 +0100, userbeitrag wrote:
> Hello again!
> I just wanted to report back for all of you who helped me and gave great
> inputs.
> 
> Thanks for the CHS/LBA info.
> This is an IDE Flash module that goes directly into the MBs slot. It
> doesn't allow to connect another device beside it, so it also doesn't
> have a master/slave jumper.
> 
> It has a capacity of 512 MB. I tested it on another PC, from around
> 2000, which auto-detected it as C/H/S 993/16/63 (no boot-up as it was
> still empty at that time, I just did the BIOS auto-detection).
> 
> 
> On the 486 I've put that in for the IDE device as custom type 82. The
> other values, LZ and WP, I left at 0. I assume for a flash drive they
> are simply not important.
> 
> But it doesn't boot. It halts with the error message: "partition
> signature != 55AA"
> 
> I've personally checked: all partitions and the MBR have that signature.
> 
> I managed to find an old external USB HDD which has an IDE interface
> inside, and I connected the flash module to my regular PC.
> 
>  > # dmesg | tail [23705.522176] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access
>  > TRANSCEN
> D PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
>  > [23705.522746] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
>  > [23705.523265] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] 1000944 512-byte logical blocks:
> (512 MB/489 MiB)
>  > [23705.524141] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off [23705.524145]
>  > sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 27 00 00 00 [23705.525012] sd 7:0:0:0:
>  > [sdc] No Caching mode page found [23705.525018] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc]
>  > Assuming drive cache: write through [23705.528556]  sdc: sdc1 sdc2
>  > sdc3 [23705.531653] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk
> 
>  > # parted /dev/sdc print Model: TRANSCEN D (scsi)
>  > Disk /dev/sdc: 512MB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
>  > Partition Table: msdos Disk Flags:
>  >
>  > Number  Start   End SizeType File system  Flags
>  >  1  32,3kB  52,7MB  52,7MB  primary 2  52,7MB  74,0MB  21,3MB
>  >   primary 3  74,0MB  480MB   406MB   primary  fat16boot
> 
> As you can see, the third primary partition is for FreeDOS. I've decided
> to create a 50 MB partition for DR DOS and a 20 MB partition for MS-DOS
> or any other DOS I want to test (like PC DOS, PTS-DOS).
> 
> The third partition has been made bootable with "format c: /s /q". I've
> also rewritten the MBR using "fdisk /mbr". All partitions are formated.
> The first two partitions are otherwise empty.
> 
> I've also used Linux's dd (e.g. "dd if=/dev/sdc1 bs=512 count=1
> of=bootsec1.bin") to check if the boot signature 55AA is present on all
> partitions + on the MBR and it is.
> 
> 
> Thinking logically: If the BIOS wouldn't check, it should boot. The MBR
> code should find the active partition #3 and chainload the bootsector.
> This should include the bootcode for FreeDOS, since I've formated it
> with /s and the system files are on the parition.
> I hate it when a BIOS checks stuff that it rather shouldn't care about!
> 
> Any other error message and it could have been FreeDOS, but I am sure
> this one if from the BIOS _before_ it executes the MBR boot code.
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe the next time I will try only one partition first... Anyway:
> again, I've come to a halt for now.
> 
> I appreciated your help.
> Happy 2017.
> Userbeitrag.
> 
> 
> 
--
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging
> tech sites, SlashDot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot



--
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] USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[Louis Santillan]

If the drive (vs. the floppy) itself remains an issue in the 486,
devices like these [0] are becoming popular.  Just plugin some old USB
flash drive with the image file and you're good to go.

Gotek Floppy Drive Emulator
[0] http://a.co/48x3vtl

On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 6:52 PM, dmccunney  wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 8:56 PM, Thomas Mueller  wrote:
>>> That brings back memories.  Back in the day, there was discussion of
>>> which *brand* of floppies to use, if you wanted to write something to
>>> floppy, put it on a shelf, and be able to read it again 5 years from
>>> now.  At the time, the "gold standard" was Dysan.  Floppy disk media
>>> varied in quality, and if you bought based on lowest price, you
>>> deserved what you got.
>>
>>> Floppies are sill made and sold - see http://www.floppydisk.com/.  I'd
>>> get new ones to try this on instead of trying to reuse ancient stuff
>>> lying around.
>>
>> I went to that website, mainly for curiosity.
>>
>> Now I don't know how or if the USB floppy drives work, whether some modern 
>> OSes are temperamental in that regard.
>
> I have one here.  It works on my machines, and is seen as A: under
> Windows and /dev/fd0 under Linux (IIRC - not in Linux at the moment.)
> The other modern OS that might be in use is OS/X, but I'm pretty sure
> USB floppy drives work there too.
>
> For more obscure stuff, you try it, and if it breaks, you get to keep
> the pieces.
>
>> For the internal drives, modern motherboards, as far as I can tell, no 
>> longer have floppy headers, making it impossible to connect a regular floppy 
>> drive.
>
> Which is why you use a USB floppy drive if you need to read floppies.
>
>> The modern "floppy" is a USB stick.
>
> Yep.  When I installed Linux to dual boot on my desktop, I did so from
> a bootable USB stick with the Ubuntu installer on it.
>
> That worked because my machine could be set to boot from a USB stick.
> I have FreeDOS installed on an ancient (2005) Notebook.  It has a USB
> 2.0 add-on card and can read USB sticks, but cannot *boot* from them.
> If I were trying to install DOS as the OS on the HD in that machine,
> I'd have to boot from a DOS floppy in the USB floppy drive.  *That*
> will work.
>
>> There are also external USB hard drives, and Micronet Fantom (micronet.com) 
>> external hard drives with both USB 3 and eSATA, up to 8 TB, if my memory is 
>> accurate.
>
> Sounds about right.
>
>> But FreeDOS, and I believe all other DOSes, have trouble with multi-TB hard 
>> drives, and I would want to partition with GPT, meaning not compatible with 
>> FreeDOS or ReactOS.
>
> Yes, they likely will have problems.
>
> DOS understood FAT16 as the file system.  The smallest area of disk
> readable/writable under DOS is the cluster, and every cluster must have
> a unique address.  FAT16 used a 16 bit address, so you had a maximum
> of 65,536 clusters.  The format routine maxed out at 32K cluster sizes,
> so you got a 2GB limit on volume size for early HDs.  Hard drives got much
> larger, and creating multiple 2GB partitions to stay within DOS's FAT16 limits
> got irksome, so MS created FAT32.  But by that point, Windows was taking
> over.  Getting plain DOS to work on a FAT32 file system on larger drives can
> be a challenge. (I believe current FreeDOS kernels have FAT32 support.)
>
> My old notebook was set to multiboot, with Win2K Pro, a couple of
> flavors of Linux, and FreeDOS on separate HD partitions. IIRC, I
> formatted the FreeDOS partition FAT32.  But getting FreeDOS to *boot*
> from a grub2 menu was a challenge, and I had to do a lot of fiddling
> before it worked.  I never did figure out just which fiddle did the
> trick.  Then an unrelated problem forced me to wipe and reinstall 2K
> and redo multi-boot under grub2.  I got Windows and Linux booting
> again, but never could get FreeDOS back.
>
> I haven't even booted the machine in a year or more.
>
>> My computer hardware no longer has any floppy capability.
>
> Nor most of mine, but that's why a USB floppy drive is a useful accessory.
>
>> Tom
> __
> 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] USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[dmccunney]

On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 8:56 PM, Thomas Mueller  wrote:
>> That brings back memories.  Back in the day, there was discussion of
>> which *brand* of floppies to use, if you wanted to write something to
>> floppy, put it on a shelf, and be able to read it again 5 years from
>> now.  At the time, the "gold standard" was Dysan.  Floppy disk media
>> varied in quality, and if you bought based on lowest price, you
>> deserved what you got.
>
>> Floppies are sill made and sold - see http://www.floppydisk.com/.  I'd
>> get new ones to try this on instead of trying to reuse ancient stuff
>> lying around.
>
> I went to that website, mainly for curiosity.
>
> Now I don't know how or if the USB floppy drives work, whether some modern 
> OSes are temperamental in that regard.

I have one here.  It works on my machines, and is seen as A: under
Windows and /dev/fd0 under Linux (IIRC - not in Linux at the moment.)
The other modern OS that might be in use is OS/X, but I'm pretty sure
USB floppy drives work there too.

For more obscure stuff, you try it, and if it breaks, you get to keep
the pieces.

> For the internal drives, modern motherboards, as far as I can tell, no longer 
> have floppy headers, making it impossible to connect a regular floppy drive.

Which is why you use a USB floppy drive if you need to read floppies.

> The modern "floppy" is a USB stick.

Yep.  When I installed Linux to dual boot on my desktop, I did so from
a bootable USB stick with the Ubuntu installer on it.

That worked because my machine could be set to boot from a USB stick.
I have FreeDOS installed on an ancient (2005) Notebook.  It has a USB
2.0 add-on card and can read USB sticks, but cannot *boot* from them.
If I were trying to install DOS as the OS on the HD in that machine,
I'd have to boot from a DOS floppy in the USB floppy drive.  *That*
will work.

> There are also external USB hard drives, and Micronet Fantom (micronet.com) 
> external hard drives with both USB 3 and eSATA, up to 8 TB, if my memory is 
> accurate.

Sounds about right.

> But FreeDOS, and I believe all other DOSes, have trouble with multi-TB hard 
> drives, and I would want to partition with GPT, meaning not compatible with 
> FreeDOS or ReactOS.

Yes, they likely will have problems.

DOS understood FAT16 as the file system.  The smallest area of disk
readable/writable under DOS is the cluster, and every cluster must have
a unique address.  FAT16 used a 16 bit address, so you had a maximum
of 65,536 clusters.  The format routine maxed out at 32K cluster sizes,
so you got a 2GB limit on volume size for early HDs.  Hard drives got much
larger, and creating multiple 2GB partitions to stay within DOS's FAT16 limits
got irksome, so MS created FAT32.  But by that point, Windows was taking
over.  Getting plain DOS to work on a FAT32 file system on larger drives can
be a challenge. (I believe current FreeDOS kernels have FAT32 support.)

My old notebook was set to multiboot, with Win2K Pro, a couple of
flavors of Linux, and FreeDOS on separate HD partitions. IIRC, I
formatted the FreeDOS partition FAT32.  But getting FreeDOS to *boot*
from a grub2 menu was a challenge, and I had to do a lot of fiddling
before it worked.  I never did figure out just which fiddle did the
trick.  Then an unrelated problem forced me to wipe and reinstall 2K
and redo multi-boot under grub2.  I got Windows and Linux booting
again, but never could get FreeDOS back.

I haven't even booted the machine in a year or more.

> My computer hardware no longer has any floppy capability.

Nor most of mine, but that's why a USB floppy drive is a useful accessory.

> Tom
__
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

Re: [Freedos-user] OT: USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[userbeitrag]

On 2017-01-02 02:53, dmccunney wrote:
> Take a variable out of the equation. Start with a fresh, new floppy
> disk.  Don't try to reuse an ancient one that may be failing due to
> age.
>
> Floppies are still made and should be findable.

Will do. Takes time.

Userbeitrag.

--
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] USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[Thomas Mueller]

> That brings back memories.  Back in the day, there was discussion of
> which *brand* of floppies to use, if you wanted to write something to
> floppy, put it on a shelf, and be able to read it again 5 years from
> now.  At the time, the "gold standard" was Dysan.  Floppy disk media
> varied in quality, and if you bought based on lowest price, you
> deserved what you got.
 
> Floppies are sill made and sold - see http://www.floppydisk.com/.  I'd
> get new ones to try this on instead of trying to reuse ancient stuff
> lying around.

I went to that website, mainly for curiosity.

Now I don't know how or if the USB floppy drives work, whether some modern OSes 
are temperamental in that regard.

For the internal drives, modern motherboards, as far as I can tell, no longer 
have floppy headers, making it impossible to connect a regular floppy drive.

The modern "floppy" is a USB stick.

There are also external USB hard drives, and Micronet Fantom (micronet.com) 
external hard drives with both USB 3 and eSATA, up to 8 TB, if my memory is 
accurate.

But FreeDOS, and I believe all other DOSes, have trouble with multi-TB hard 
drives, and I would want to partition with GPT, meaning not compatible with 
FreeDOS or ReactOS.

My computer hardware no longer has any floppy capability.

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

Re: [Freedos-user] OT: USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[dmccunney]

On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 8:48 PM,   wrote:
> On 2017-01-01 22:27, dmccunney wrote:
>>> I don't really expect help here. It is just a message to get the
>>> understand for why I cannot load FreeDOS onto a floppy at this time.
>> With proper knowledge, I suspect you could.
>
> I know that this USB floppy drive has worked. I was successfully reading
> a disk that I needed an image of under Linux. But I also know that a
> disk, that had worked in another PC with a classic floppy drive
> (connected to the FD port on the motherboard), had the same errors using
> the USB floppy drive.
>
> I don't know. It's prooven that it does work -- sometimes. It's also
> prooven that some disks give access errors all the way unter Linux.
> Honestly, I have no idea.

Take a variable out of the equation.  Start with a fresh, new floppy
disk.  Don't try to reuse an ancient one that may be failing due to
age.

Floppies are still made and should be findable.

> Userbeitrag.
__
Dennis
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519

--
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] OT: USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[userbeitrag]

On 2017-01-01 22:27, dmccunney wrote:
>> I don't really expect help here. It is just a message to get the
>> understand for why I cannot load FreeDOS onto a floppy at this time.
> With proper knowledge, I suspect you could.

I know that this USB floppy drive has worked. I was successfully reading 
a disk that I needed an image of under Linux. But I also know that a 
disk, that had worked in another PC with a classic floppy drive 
(connected to the FD port on the motherboard), had the same errors using 
the USB floppy drive.

I don't know. It's prooven that it does work -- sometimes. It's also 
prooven that some disks give access errors all the way unter Linux. 
Honestly, I have no idea.

Userbeitrag.

--
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] Preload and start installer from installation target?

[userbeitrag]

Hello again!
I just wanted to report back for all of you who helped me and gave great 
inputs.

Thanks for the CHS/LBA info.
This is an IDE Flash module that goes directly into the MBs slot. It 
doesn't allow to connect another device beside it, so it also doesn't 
have a master/slave jumper.

It has a capacity of 512 MB. I tested it on another PC, from around 
2000, which auto-detected it as C/H/S 993/16/63 (no boot-up as it was 
still empty at that time, I just did the BIOS auto-detection).


On the 486 I've put that in for the IDE device as custom type 82. The 
other values, LZ and WP, I left at 0. I assume for a flash drive they 
are simply not important.

But it doesn't boot. It halts with the error message: "partition 
signature != 55AA"

I've personally checked: all partitions and the MBR have that signature.

I managed to find an old external USB HDD which has an IDE interface 
inside, and I connected the flash module to my regular PC.

 > # dmesg | tail
 > [23705.522176] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access TRANSCEN 
D PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
 > [23705.522746] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
 > [23705.523265] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] 1000944 512-byte logical blocks: 
(512 MB/489 MiB)
 > [23705.524141] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
 > [23705.524145] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 27 00 00 00
 > [23705.525012] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
 > [23705.525018] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
 > [23705.528556]  sdc: sdc1 sdc2 sdc3
 > [23705.531653] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk

 > # parted /dev/sdc print
 > Model: TRANSCEN D (scsi)
 > Disk /dev/sdc: 512MB
 > Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
 > Partition Table: msdos
 > Disk Flags:
 >
 > Number  Start   End SizeType File system  Flags
 >  1  32,3kB  52,7MB  52,7MB  primary
 >  2  52,7MB  74,0MB  21,3MB  primary
 >  3  74,0MB  480MB   406MB   primary  fat16boot

As you can see, the third primary partition is for FreeDOS. I've decided 
to create a 50 MB partition for DR DOS and a 20 MB partition for MS-DOS 
or any other DOS I want to test (like PC DOS, PTS-DOS).

The third partition has been made bootable with "format c: /s /q". I've 
also rewritten the MBR using "fdisk /mbr". All partitions are formated. 
The first two partitions are otherwise empty.

I've also used Linux's dd (e.g. "dd if=/dev/sdc1 bs=512 count=1 
of=bootsec1.bin") to check if the boot signature 55AA is present on all 
partitions + on the MBR and it is.


Thinking logically: If the BIOS wouldn't check, it should boot. The MBR 
code should find the active partition #3 and chainload the bootsector. 
This should include the bootcode for FreeDOS, since I've formated it 
with /s and the system files are on the parition.
I hate it when a BIOS checks stuff that it rather shouldn't care about!

Any other error message and it could have been FreeDOS, but I am sure 
this one if from the BIOS _before_ it executes the MBR boot code.



Maybe the next time I will try only one partition first... Anyway: 
again, I've come to a halt for now.

I appreciated your help.
Happy 2017.
Userbeitrag.


--
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] USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[dmccunney]

On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 7:09 PM, Santiago Almenara  wrote:
> 2017-01-01 18:52 GMT-05:00 dmccunney :

>> That brings back memories.  Back in the day, there was discussion of
>> which *brand* of floppies to use, if you wanted to write something to
>> floppy, put it on a shelf, and be able to read it again 5 years from
>> now.  At the time, the "gold standard" was Dysan.  Floppy disk media
>> varied in quality, and if you bought based on lowest price, you
>> deserved what you got.
>>
>> Floppies are sill made and sold - see http://www.floppydisk.com/.  I'd
>> get new ones to try this on instead of trying to reuse ancient stuff
>> lying around.
>
> Excuse me, I don't want to start a flame war but
>
> I always thought that floppy disks production were pretty dead, maybe some
> obscure Chinese brand were still making them.
> In the other hand, are Imation, 3M or Sony still making floppies???

AFAIK, yes.

But in the stated case, it doesn't matter.

I believe the OP wants to put DOS on a floppy he can boot from, and
from there install it on a hard drive.

It doesn't have to be a top quality, long lasting disk, as nothing of
value will be stored on it long term.  It just has to format and work
long enough.  Cheap noname Chinese floppies will do.

> Santiago
__
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

Re: [Freedos-user] USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[Santiago Almenara]

Excuse me, I don't want to start a flame war but

I always thought that floppy disks production were pretty dead, maybe some
obscure Chinese brand were still making them.
In the other hand, are Imation, 3M or Sony still making floppies???

Happy New Year!


Santiago


2017-01-01 18:52 GMT-05:00 dmccunney :

> On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 5:33 PM, Thomas Mueller 
> wrote:
>
> > I never had a USB floppy drive but have experience with regular floppy
> drives, 3.5" and 5.25".
> >
> > In the later years, I had great trouble with floppy drives.  Ability to
> write was lost before the ability to read.  5.25" floppies seemed to have
> better shelf life than 3.5".
> >
> > FreeDOS did better than Linux with floppy drives, and Linux did better
> than FreeBSD or NetBSD.
> >
> > Error messages you got with that floppy disk were roughly consistent
> with what I would get with floppies from 1995 and thereabouts.
> >
> > Even floppies that I had never used proved unusable.
>
> That brings back memories.  Back in the day, there was discussion of
> which *brand* of floppies to use, if you wanted to write something to
> floppy, put it on a shelf, and be able to read it again 5 years from
> now.  At the time, the "gold standard" was Dysan.  Floppy disk media
> varied in quality, and if you bought based on lowest price, you
> deserved what you got.
>
> Floppies are sill made and sold - see http://www.floppydisk.com/.  I'd
> get new ones to try this on instead of trying to reuse ancient stuff
> lying around.
>
> > Tom
> __
> Dennis
> https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519
>
> 
> --
> 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] USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[dmccunney]

On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 5:33 PM, Thomas Mueller  wrote:

> I never had a USB floppy drive but have experience with regular floppy 
> drives, 3.5" and 5.25".
>
> In the later years, I had great trouble with floppy drives.  Ability to write 
> was lost before the ability to read.  5.25" floppies seemed to have better 
> shelf life than 3.5".
>
> FreeDOS did better than Linux with floppy drives, and Linux did better than 
> FreeBSD or NetBSD.
>
> Error messages you got with that floppy disk were roughly consistent with 
> what I would get with floppies from 1995 and thereabouts.
>
> Even floppies that I had never used proved unusable.

That brings back memories.  Back in the day, there was discussion of
which *brand* of floppies to use, if you wanted to write something to
floppy, put it on a shelf, and be able to read it again 5 years from
now.  At the time, the "gold standard" was Dysan.  Floppy disk media
varied in quality, and if you bought based on lowest price, you
deserved what you got.

Floppies are sill made and sold - see http://www.floppydisk.com/.  I'd
get new ones to try this on instead of trying to reuse ancient stuff
lying around.

> Tom
__
Dennis
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519

--
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] HIMEMX.EXE - Invalid Opcode

[userbeitrag]

I tried to boot FreeDOS 1.2 on my 2005 PC, specs:

* BIOS

* Intel 945P chipset

* Pentium D-950 (64-bit capable)

* 2.5 GB DDR2 RAM

* SATA in "Compatible Mode" as P-ATA:

** Primary IDE Master: IOMEGA ZIP 250

** Primary IDE Slave: DVD-RW

* PATA from additional controller chip

** TRANSCEND IDE FLASH MODULE


It is the FD12CD.ISO image, booted from CD-R. I chose "Install" and used 
F8 to diagnose the problem.

DEVICE=\FDSetup\BIN\HIMEMX.EXE stalls the system. It infinitely repeads:

Invalid Opcode at 0FAE 1068 0046 0001 0002  0200   0183  
4200 0001


Skipping HIMEMX.EXE lets me continue with installation.


Just reporting...

Userbeitrag.


--
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] USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[Thomas Mueller]

> I was asked why I cannot put FreeDOS on a floppy. Here is the reason. I
> just tried another floppy disk that I found. It is original from before
> 1995, so it may be broken. I can try to check on my 486 once it is up
> and running, but for now this is what I get on Linux when I put the disk
> into the USB floppy drive.



> [14502.458855] usb 3-1.2: new full-speed USB device number 11 using ehci-pci
> [14502.592376] usb 3-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0409,
> idProduct=0040
> [14502.592381] usb 3-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2,
> SerialNumber=0
> [14502.592385] usb 3-1.2: Product: NEC USB UF000x
> [14502.592387] usb 3-1.2: Manufacturer: NEC
> [14502.594614] usb-storage 3-1.2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
> [14502.594740] usb-storage 3-1.2:1.0: Quirks match for vid 0409 pid 0040: 1
> [14502.594802] scsi host6: usb-storage 3-1.2:1.0
> [14503.654640] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access NEC  USB UF000x
1.60 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
> [14503.666875] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
> [14507.558821] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Read Capacity(10) failed: Result:
> hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
> [14507.558827] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
> [14507.558831] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Add. Sense: Cannot read medium -
> unknown format
> [14507.622812] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is on
> [14507.622821] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 00 46 94 80
> [14507.686775] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page found
> [14507.686782] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
> [14508.134833] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Read Capacity(10) failed: Result:
> hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
> [14508.134842] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
> [14508.134847] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Add. Sense: Cannot read medium -
> unknown format
> [14508.390739] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
> [14511.206876] EXT4-fs (sdc): unable to read superblock
> [14511.270868] EXT4-fs (sdc): unable to read superblock
> [14511.334865] EXT4-fs (sdc): unable to read superblock
> [14511.398905] FAT-fs (sdc): unable to read boot sector


> I don't really expect help here. It is just a message to get the
> understand for why I cannot load FreeDOS onto a floppy at this time.


> Happy 2017!

> Userbeitrag.

I never had a USB floppy drive but have experience with regular floppy drives, 
3.5" and 5.25".

In the later years, I had great trouble with floppy drives.  Ability to write 
was lost before the ability to read.  5.25" floppies seemed to have better 
shelf life than 3.5".

FreeDOS did better than Linux with floppy drives, and Linux did better than 
FreeBSD or NetBSD.

Error messages you got with that floppy disk were roughly consistent with what 
I would get with floppies from 1995 and thereabouts.

Even floppies that I had never used proved unusable.

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

[Freedos-user] New year and new drivers

[E. Auer]

Hi everybody,

just a quick mail to wish you a happy new year and
forward some news from Jack - for those who have a
really old PC. Jack made a 2016-12-15 driver update:

One-Time ONLY update of the 5-Mar-2015 drivers provided
from SourceForge IBiblio. Changes are:

  * XMGR/UHDD now do real-mode XMS moves O.K. on an 80386 CPU.

  * UHDD's overlap and binary-search buffer have been deleted.

  * UHDD adds 10-MB and 20-MB cache sizes for smaller systems.

  * UHDD adds a /G switch for older DOS games that require it.

  * The /R switch for RDISK, UHDD and UDVD2 has been improved.

  * The UIDE driver is dropped and shall not be maintained
nor updated any further. Use UHDD and UDVD2 instead.

The catch is that the drivers are only available
from him on request, not distributed on websites.

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

Re: [Freedos-user] OT: USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[dmccunney]

On Sun, Jan 1, 2017 at 4:15 PM,   wrote:

> I was asked why I cannot put FreeDOS on a floppy. Here is the reason. I
> just tried another floppy disk that I found. It is original from before
> 1995, so it may be broken. I can try to check on my 486 once it is up
> and running, but for now this is what I get on Linux when I put the disk
> into the USB floppy drive.

<...>

What I get from that is that Linux recognizes the USB Floppy *device*,
but can't make heads nor tails of the floppy disk medium *in* the
device.  (It's looking for a Linux filesystem with a superblock, and
not finding one.)

You didn't specify what, if anything, is on the floppy you tried.
It's possible to format a DOS floppy from Linux - see
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/219533/how-to-format-720k-fat-ie-ms-dos-floppy-on-linux-using-usb-floppy-drive
for an example.  You might want to try that.

> I don't really expect help here. It is just a message to get the
> understand for why I cannot load FreeDOS onto a floppy at this time.

With proper knowledge, I suspect you could.

> Happy 2017!
> Userbeitrag.
__
Dennis
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105128793974319004519

--
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] OT: USB floppy cannot read medium on modern PC and Linux.

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Jan 1, 2017 3:16 PM,  wrote:
>
> I don't really expect help here. It is just a message to get the
> understand for why I cannot load FreeDOS onto a floppy at
> this time.

This may not be quite what you meant, but ... AFAIK, many modern OSes can't
use USB floppies by default (unlike FreeDOS) because they don't use the
BIOS.

Of course, I'd be surprised if Linux couldn't, but who knows. I vaguely
remember hearing that Minix 3 couldn't, but Haiku allegedly can because
some developer needed it and implemented it.

Just FYI.

> Happy 2017!

Ditto.
--
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