Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS without the boot loader?
What you probably did was to boot with the Win98 partition as active. You have to change the active partition before booting FreeDOS for instalation. This will define the correct C: for the instalation, even if it shows invalid because it is not formated. Alain Em 15-06-2010 07:21, kellybe...@gwi.net escreveu: I think the problem was caused by metakern in FreeDos. Its possible that I accidently installed the FreeDOS onto the same partition as Windows 98 rather than the partition that I created for it, and therefore metakern created the freedos boot loader in the partition's boot record. Since I've since reimaged the Win98, I don't know for sure but I don't know of any other explanation for it. I've used the same Grub configuration you pointed out and it does work well for this purpose. I am just trying to understand what FreeDOS did the last time I installed it. The easier thing for me to do, I think, would be to just boot into the live CD, run it from the command line, confirm each partition, and then proceed with the installation. Original Message- From:Alain Mouetteala...@pobox.com To: kellybe...@gwi.net Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS without the boot loader? Date:Monday, June 14, 2010 9:57 PM I think that you are a bit confused. Instalin freedos in another primary partition dos nor afect the Win98 partition in any maner except by instalation errors. The reason why it keeps booting win98 it because that partition is *active* change that with fdisk (or whatever) and FreeDOS boots. Have you tried my grub config? it has a command do change exactly that. Alain Em 14-06-2010 22:01, kellybe...@gwi.net escreveu: Thank you Eric and Alain for your response. I've had pretty good luck in the past with booting FreeDOS with Grub. My question involves more of the process during which FreeDOS is installed. Until recently, I never had any problems installing FreeDOS. However, recently I tried installing it on a machine that had Windows 98 (hda1) and Debian Linux (hda2). I created a primary HDA4 partition and formatted it as a FAT partition. I installed FreeDOS to this partition, but after that point, everytime I booted into Windows 98, I initially received a FreeDOS boot menu after Grub booted me into the Win98 partition. I located a file in the root directory of Windows 98, and when I tried altering that file, it made the Win98 partition unbootable. I have since reimaged the Windows 98 partition back to its prior state using dd, but I'd like to try FreeDOS one more time. It seems that FreeDOS created a boot manager in the boot record of the Windows 98 partition, and I'd like to avoid that from happening, if at all possible. Original Message- From:Eric Auere.a...@jpberlin.de To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS without the boot loader? Reply-To:freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net Date:Monday, June 14, 2010 4:37 PM Hi Alain, Eric, FreeDOS does not need anything from the Win98 partition to boot. The requisites are: 1) it must boot from a primary partition 2) the partition needs to be active. Not really... Because you use GRUB, it is enough if you have a valid boot sector in a FILE. Our SYS can make such files, without actually SYSing your partition. So Windows stays as it is, and you give the file to GRUB as the chainloader. You just state the filename instead of the +1 to make the DOS menu item, which for the rest is a copy of the Windows one. Example GRUB menu.lst snippet - GRUB 2 might differ a bit: # on /dev/sda1 title FreeDOS root(hd0,0) # savedefault chainloader /freedos.bot # on /dev/sda1 title Windows root(hd0,0) # savedefault chainloader +1 To make this work, you generate a freedos.bot file in the root directory of the C: drive of Windows, using our SYS: sys c: c:\freedos.bot bootonly The bootonly stops SYS from copying kernel.sys and command.com of FreeDOS to C: - instead, you can copy our kernel.sys to the root directory of C: manually. Do NOT copy command.com to that place! You might mix it with the Windows one otherwise. Instead, put
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS without the boot loader?
Hi FreeDOS does not need anything from the Win98 partition to boot. The requisites are: 1) it must boot from a primary partition 2) the partition needs to be active. Windows98 have the same requisites, that is the problem. But it can be solved by Grub.. This is how I did it: # This entry for FreeDOS on /dev/sda1 title FreeDOS root(hd0,0) savedefault makeactive chainloader +1 # This entry for Windows98 on /dev/sda2 title Windows 95/98/Me root(hd0,1) savedefault makeactive chainloader +1 Notice the makeactive command that changes the active partition on-the-fly. But you will still need both to be primary partitions, only a few programs can achieve this, sorry but I don't remember which, probably PartedMagic http://partedmagic.com/ is ok. (it can move partitions too) Alain Em 13-06-2010 20:33, Eric escreveu: Is it possible to install FreeDOS 1.0 on a Windows 95/98 machine without it installing the boot loader into the Windows 98 partition? I have an old laptop with Windows 98 and Linux. I use Grub to multiboot, so I don't need the FreeDOS boot loader, and don't want to interfere with the Win98 partition. I realize (1) Win98 has its own DOS, I just want to play with FreeDOS, and (2) I could just sys the FreeDOS partition, but I'd rather use the FreeDOS installer if possible. Thanks. -- ThinkGeek and WIRED's GeekDad team up for the Ultimate GeekDad Father's Day Giveaway. ONE MASSIVE PRIZE to the lucky parental unit. See the prize list and enter to win: http://p.sf.net/sfu/thinkgeek-promo ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS without the boot loader?
Hi Alain, Eric, FreeDOS does not need anything from the Win98 partition to boot. The requisites are: 1) it must boot from a primary partition 2) the partition needs to be active. Not really... Because you use GRUB, it is enough if you have a valid boot sector in a FILE. Our SYS can make such files, without actually SYSing your partition. So Windows stays as it is, and you give the file to GRUB as the chainloader. You just state the filename instead of the +1 to make the DOS menu item, which for the rest is a copy of the Windows one. Example GRUB menu.lst snippet - GRUB 2 might differ a bit: # on /dev/sda1 title FreeDOS root(hd0,0) # savedefault chainloader /freedos.bot # on /dev/sda1 title Windows root(hd0,0) # savedefault chainloader +1 To make this work, you generate a freedos.bot file in the root directory of the C: drive of Windows, using our SYS: sys c: c:\freedos.bot bootonly The bootonly stops SYS from copying kernel.sys and command.com of FreeDOS to C: - instead, you can copy our kernel.sys to the root directory of C: manually. Do NOT copy command.com to that place! You might mix it with the Windows one otherwise. Instead, put it in a separate directory, for example c:\freedos\ :-) Note that SYS cannot (as far as I remember) make good boot sectors for non-primary partitions. However, if you use e.g. my Linux oriented sys-freedos.pl, you can add manual correction to boot even non-primary. Because this micro howto explains how to make FreeDOS share the primary C: partition with Windows, you do not need to worry about non-primary. SYS works fine with a partition where Windows 98 can boot from. Note that XP is a different story - NTFS partitions are not for DOS. Now you are almost ready to boot FreeDOS via GRUB. You will probably want that Windows and DOS do _not_ share the same config.sys, and luckily FreeDOS makes it easy for you: Simply create a file fdconfig.sys in the root directory of C: and put your DOS configuration there. FreeDOS will only read config.sys if it cannot find a fdconfig.sys file... You can even keep your autoexec bat separate as well. For that, your fdconfig.sys must have a shell line similar to this: SHELL=C:\freedos\command.com C:\freedos /E:1024 /P=C:\freedos\start. bat The start bat file in the freedos directory is now used in the same way as you would normally use the autoexec batch file. With those tricks, you keep all the FreeDOS configuration and boot files separately from the Windows ones. You only add three files to the root directory (kernel.sys, fdconfig.sys, freedos.bot) which are not in the way for Windows, and put all other FreeDOS files in your freedos directory. When you install more parts of FreeDOS, you often have a directory structure where the main directory is for example c:\fdos and programs are in c:\fdos\bin... For a somewhat newer floppy image (actually up to three depending on how much you want) with updated FreeDOS software, check http://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/ (you can also download zips instead of images if you simply want the files and do not use actual floppies) Notice the makeactive command that changes the active partition on-the-fly. But you will still need both to be primary partitions, only a few programs can achieve this, sorry but I don't remember which, probably PartedMagic http://partedmagic.com/ is ok. (it can move partitions too) Sounds complicated ;-) Cheers, Eric -- ThinkGeek and WIRED's GeekDad team up for the Ultimate GeekDad Father's Day Giveaway. ONE MASSIVE PRIZE to the lucky parental unit. See the prize list and enter to win: http://p.sf.net/sfu/thinkgeek-promo ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Installing FreeDOS without the boot loader?
This explanation by Eric Auer may be a little confusing, but note one thing: This is for having *both FreeDOS and Win98 in the same partition* but I am not sure if that is what was asked. In any case, I found very interesting this dual method :) Alain Em 14-06-2010 17:37, Eric Auer escreveu: Hi Alain, Eric, FreeDOS does not need anything from the Win98 partition to boot. The requisites are: 1) it must boot from a primary partition 2) the partition needs to be active. Not really... Because you use GRUB, it is enough if you have a valid boot sector in a FILE. Our SYS can make such files, without actually SYSing your partition. So Windows stays as it is, and you give the file to GRUB as the chainloader. You just state the filename instead of the +1 to make the DOS menu item, which for the rest is a copy of the Windows one. Example GRUB menu.lst snippet - GRUB 2 might differ a bit: # on /dev/sda1 title FreeDOS root(hd0,0) # savedefault chainloader /freedos.bot # on /dev/sda1 title Windows root(hd0,0) # savedefault chainloader +1 To make this work, you generate a freedos.bot file in the root directory of the C: drive of Windows, using our SYS: sys c: c:\freedos.bot bootonly The bootonly stops SYS from copying kernel.sys and command.com of FreeDOS to C: - instead, you can copy our kernel.sys to the root directory of C: manually. Do NOT copy command.com to that place! You might mix it with the Windows one otherwise. Instead, put it in a separate directory, for example c:\freedos\ :-) Note that SYS cannot (as far as I remember) make good boot sectors for non-primary partitions. However, if you use e.g. my Linux oriented sys-freedos.pl, you can add manual correction to boot even non-primary. Because this micro howto explains how to make FreeDOS share the primary C: partition with Windows, you do not need to worry about non-primary. SYS works fine with a partition where Windows 98 can boot from. Note that XP is a different story - NTFS partitions are not for DOS. Now you are almost ready to boot FreeDOS via GRUB. You will probably want that Windows and DOS do _not_ share the same config.sys, and luckily FreeDOS makes it easy for you: Simply create a file fdconfig.sys in the root directory of C: and put your DOS configuration there. FreeDOS will only read config.sys if it cannot find a fdconfig.sys file... You can even keep your autoexec bat separate as well. For that, your fdconfig.sys must have a shell line similar to this: SHELL=C:\freedos\command.com C:\freedos /E:1024 /P=C:\freedos\start. bat The start bat file in the freedos directory is now used in the same way as you would normally use the autoexec batch file. With those tricks, you keep all the FreeDOS configuration and boot files separately from the Windows ones. You only add three files to the root directory (kernel.sys, fdconfig.sys, freedos.bot) which are not in the way for Windows, and put all other FreeDOS files in your freedos directory. When you install more parts of FreeDOS, you often have a directory structure where the main directory is for example c:\fdos and programs are in c:\fdos\bin... For a somewhat newer floppy image (actually up to three depending on how much you want) with updated FreeDOS software, check http://sites.google.com/site/rugxulo/ (you can also download zips instead of images if you simply want the files and do not use actual floppies) Notice the makeactive command that changes the active partition on-the-fly. But you will still need both to be primary partitions, only a few programs can achieve this, sorry but I don't remember which, probably PartedMagichttp://partedmagic.com/ is ok. (it can move partitions too) Sounds complicated ;-) Cheers, Eric -- ThinkGeek and WIRED's GeekDad team up for the Ultimate GeekDad Father's Day Giveaway. ONE MASSIVE PRIZE to the lucky parental unit. See the prize list and enter to win: http://p.sf.net/sfu/thinkgeek-promo ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
