Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/26/2021 12:29 PM, Louis Santillan wrote:


There seems to be some population of newer or obscure BIOSes that will 
misreport IDE drives and BIOS booted HDD formatted USB drives as being 
non fixed disks which FD FDISK requires to be able to interact with them.


This isn't "obscure" at all in regards to any newer (post mid-90s) BIOS, 
as this would be required to support plug'n play of USB drives...


Ralf



--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus



___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Louis Santillan]

I was able to test and MS DOS 6.22 is able to see and format the IDE DOM
drive much like MS DOS 7.  So, I haven't looked at what FD FDISK is doing
differently, and it's likely a relatively small population that is affected
by this.

There seems to be some population of newer or obscure BIOSes that will
misreport IDE drives and BIOS booted HDD formatted USB drives as being non
fixed disks which FD FDISK requires to be able to interact with them.  I'm
willing to do some debugging, data capturing, and testing if there is a
place to report this.  I have a ton of screenshots already.  I'm also
willing to ship a Wyse SX0 if they think it would be necessary and useful.

Any tips of what would be useful to capture and post a bug report to?



On Fri, Dec 24, 2021 at 3:02 PM Louis Santillan  wrote:

> Apologies for the zombie thread revival.
>
> I recently bought 3 of these Wyse SX0 thin clients and I can confirm that
> FreeDOS 1.3-RC5 (and worse!) and FDISK are buggy on it.  I think the
> reality is that BIOS and USB boot code is only partially complete and just
> enough to boot into a more modern OS (ThinOS/Linux, Linux, Windows XPe,
> Windows CE, etc).
>
> The only FreeDOS image this BIOS is able to boot is a converted to RAW
> VMDK image from the LiteUSB zip. FullUSB slowly prints 2 dots but then gets
> seems to get stuck there.
>
> However, MS DOS 7 exhibits the same behavior.  Floppy Images, Bootable ISO
> images do not boot on the Wyse SX0 BIOS.  It is probably more accurate to
> say this BIOS seems to have a heavy preference for HD based booting (USB or
> 44-pin IDE).
>
> As for HD hiding, FreeDOS, FD FDISK, MS DOS 7, MS FDISK are confused by
> what the BIOS presents as the drive info usually found in lower areas of
> memory and/or what is presented via BIOS calls.  When FD boots from the
> VMDK image via USB drive, FDISK will say that there are no fixed disks
> present...which is physically true though as users, we would like the USB
> drive to be treated as a fixed disk.  Worse, Gregg was correct in that 44
> pin IDE DOM HDD is hidden or atleast obscured from being completely visible
> to FDISK.   FDISK still complains there are no fixed disks and the DOM
> should definitely be marked a fixed disk by the BIOS.   And there may be a
> drive enumeration error there when booting off USB with a 44-pin IDE DOM
> HDD together.  USB is mounted as C: while the DOM becomes D:.
>
> I say there is a bug above because while MS DOS 7 and tools like MSD &
> HWiNFO get all kinds of facts about the system incorrect, MS DOS 7 FDISK,
> FORMAT, SYS are still able to complete the tasks of initializing a drive
> partition table, formatting, and transferring a bootable MBR, and then
> transferring the minimal set of files required to boot a system.  You can't
> quite boot & install from USB as a casual DOS user would expect.  Instead,
> you need to initialize the drive, transfer setup files to the new drive,
> reboot w/o USB, then install with a half baked drive.  Having MS DOS 7
> still be able to install with a half working BIOS while FreeDOS (or atleast
> FD FDISK) is not able to is the bug.
>
> I'll do some testing with MS DOS 6.22 and see if it is an LBA vs. BIOS
> partition type thing, or maybe a FAT32 vs. FAT16 thing.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 4:08 AM Eric Auer  wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi! As said, I can imagine that the BIOS of your
>> system has problems if the USB stick and DOM both
>> count as harddisks. But you already have bootable
>> DOS installed from floppy now, so I suggest ways
>> which are easier:
>>
>> You can connect the DOM instead of the normal disk
>> to a "bigger" PC with CD-ROM and powerful BIOS and
>> install there, then put the DOM into the small PC
>> again.
>>
>> You can use the ability of FreeDOS drivers to use
>> ISO files instead of physical CD/DVD drives and
>> then run the installer from that virtual CD ROM.
>>
>> Read the SHSU* driver documentation or check the
>> contents of the normal ISO for examples of how to
>> load and configure the drivers.
>>
>> You can use older versions of FreeDOS boot images
>> because those only use FLOPPY type boot areas and
>> avoid the conflict of the current virtual HARDDISK
>> boot image. Then, upgrade to a newer version using
>> the installed version, or just keep things as-is.
>>
>> So there are many ways to have a guilt-free DOS :-)
>>
>> Regards, Eric
>>
>> PS: Yes, you can use USB drives formatted ZIP style
>> to boot from with various - but not all - BIOSes.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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 mailing list

Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Louis Santillan]

Apologies for the zombie thread revival.

I recently bought 3 of these Wyse SX0 thin clients and I can confirm that
FreeDOS 1.3-RC5 (and worse!) and FDISK are buggy on it.  I think the
reality is that BIOS and USB boot code is only partially complete and just
enough to boot into a more modern OS (ThinOS/Linux, Linux, Windows XPe,
Windows CE, etc).

The only FreeDOS image this BIOS is able to boot is a converted to RAW VMDK
image from the LiteUSB zip. FullUSB slowly prints 2 dots but then gets
seems to get stuck there.

However, MS DOS 7 exhibits the same behavior.  Floppy Images, Bootable ISO
images do not boot on the Wyse SX0 BIOS.  It is probably more accurate to
say this BIOS seems to have a heavy preference for HD based booting (USB or
44-pin IDE).

As for HD hiding, FreeDOS, FD FDISK, MS DOS 7, MS FDISK are confused by
what the BIOS presents as the drive info usually found in lower areas of
memory and/or what is presented via BIOS calls.  When FD boots from the
VMDK image via USB drive, FDISK will say that there are no fixed disks
present...which is physically true though as users, we would like the USB
drive to be treated as a fixed disk.  Worse, Gregg was correct in that 44
pin IDE DOM HDD is hidden or atleast obscured from being completely visible
to FDISK.   FDISK still complains there are no fixed disks and the DOM
should definitely be marked a fixed disk by the BIOS.   And there may be a
drive enumeration error there when booting off USB with a 44-pin IDE DOM
HDD together.  USB is mounted as C: while the DOM becomes D:.

I say there is a bug above because while MS DOS 7 and tools like MSD &
HWiNFO get all kinds of facts about the system incorrect, MS DOS 7 FDISK,
FORMAT, SYS are still able to complete the tasks of initializing a drive
partition table, formatting, and transferring a bootable MBR, and then
transferring the minimal set of files required to boot a system.  You can't
quite boot & install from USB as a casual DOS user would expect.  Instead,
you need to initialize the drive, transfer setup files to the new drive,
reboot w/o USB, then install with a half baked drive.  Having MS DOS 7
still be able to install with a half working BIOS while FreeDOS (or atleast
FD FDISK) is not able to is the bug.

I'll do some testing with MS DOS 6.22 and see if it is an LBA vs. BIOS
partition type thing, or maybe a FAT32 vs. FAT16 thing.



On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 4:08 AM Eric Auer  wrote:

>
> Hi! As said, I can imagine that the BIOS of your
> system has problems if the USB stick and DOM both
> count as harddisks. But you already have bootable
> DOS installed from floppy now, so I suggest ways
> which are easier:
>
> You can connect the DOM instead of the normal disk
> to a "bigger" PC with CD-ROM and powerful BIOS and
> install there, then put the DOM into the small PC
> again.
>
> You can use the ability of FreeDOS drivers to use
> ISO files instead of physical CD/DVD drives and
> then run the installer from that virtual CD ROM.
>
> Read the SHSU* driver documentation or check the
> contents of the normal ISO for examples of how to
> load and configure the drivers.
>
> You can use older versions of FreeDOS boot images
> because those only use FLOPPY type boot areas and
> avoid the conflict of the current virtual HARDDISK
> boot image. Then, upgrade to a newer version using
> the installed version, or just keep things as-is.
>
> So there are many ways to have a guilt-free DOS :-)
>
> Regards, Eric
>
> PS: Yes, you can use USB drives formatted ZIP style
> to boot from with various - but not all - BIOSes.
>
>
>
> --
> 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 mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Eric Auer]

Hi! As said, I can imagine that the BIOS of your
system has problems if the USB stick and DOM both
count as harddisks. But you already have bootable
DOS installed from floppy now, so I suggest ways
which are easier:

You can connect the DOM instead of the normal disk
to a "bigger" PC with CD-ROM and powerful BIOS and
install there, then put the DOM into the small PC
again.

You can use the ability of FreeDOS drivers to use
ISO files instead of physical CD/DVD drives and
then run the installer from that virtual CD ROM.

Read the SHSU* driver documentation or check the
contents of the normal ISO for examples of how to
load and configure the drivers.

You can use older versions of FreeDOS boot images
because those only use FLOPPY type boot areas and
avoid the conflict of the current virtual HARDDISK
boot image. Then, upgrade to a newer version using
the installed version, or just keep things as-is.

So there are many ways to have a guilt-free DOS :-)

Regards, Eric

PS: Yes, you can use USB drives formatted ZIP style
to boot from with various - but not all - BIOSes.


--
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] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

It was partitioned, with an MBR, accessible to Windows when connected to a USB 
to IDE adapter.
 
Currently it's bootable to a DOS prompt. I used the "China DOS Union" DOS 7.1 
boot floppy with a USB floppy drive to fdisk and format the DOM installed in 
the thin client. I could go ahead and put that on, but I want to make a 'guilt 
free' redistributable DOM image along with detailed instructions of exactly 
what works so others can easily put FreeDOS on any WYSE Sx0 thin client.

What I haven't yet been able to do is get a FreeDOS installer onto a USB stick 
that will see the DOM when it's booted to USB. Either won't boot or will boot 
but can't see the DOM.

If there's a way to setup a FreeDOS boot floppy with USB support, that will 
work with an IDE CD-ROM drive connected with a USB adapter, I'll try digging 
out a CD-ROM drive and connecting both it and my USB floppy.
I'm assuming that as long as nothing connected via USB grabs hold of C: (or the 
primary fixed drive designation by any name) then the BIOS will allow the DOM 
to be seen and written to by the OS that's booted from USB. The WYSE utility 
for making flash drives to install the regular WYSE approved systems has to 
work around this. I could make one of those again and image it or examine it to 
see what format structure it uses.

A 'super floppy' FreeDOS image that can be written to a USB stick might do the 
trick, if it boots as A:.
I have a USB Iomega Zip drive. How about a Zip 100 image? ;) Dunno if the thin 
client will boot off one of those, would probably assign it to C: and make the 
DOM inaccessible.

On Friday, January 12, 2018, 7:17:42 AM MST, Tom Ehlert 
 wrote:  
> I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with
> FreeDOS. Mounted that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS
> install image and installed FreeDOS to the image copied from the
> DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that image back to the DOM. "Missing 
> Operating System".

I just reread this post.


"Missing Operating System" is usually issued by the master boot
record, when no active partition is found.

is the DOM partitioned, or a raw ('superfloppy') medium?


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] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Don Flowers]

>"Missing Operating System" is usually issued by the master boot
>record, when no active partition is found.

I have a Compaq Presario that issues that statement apparently from the
BIOS, as I switch among about 4 hard drives and sometimes the drive is not
fully inserted in the connector..

On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 9:16 AM, Tom Ehlert  wrote:

>
> > I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with
> > FreeDOS. Mounted that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS
> > install image and installed FreeDOS to the image copied from the
> > DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that image back to the DOM. "Missing
> Operating System".
>
> I just reread this post.
>
>
> "Missing Operating System" is usually issued by the master boot
> record, when no active partition is found.
>
> is the DOM partitioned, or a raw ('superfloppy') medium?
>
>
> 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] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Tom Ehlert]

> I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with
> FreeDOS. Mounted that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS
> install image and installed FreeDOS to the image copied from the
> DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that image back to the DOM. "Missing 
> Operating System".

I just reread this post.


"Missing Operating System" is usually issued by the master boot
record, when no active partition is found.

is the DOM partitioned, or a raw ('superfloppy') medium?


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] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

I'm going to try using RMPrepUSB to put the FreeDOS USB install image onto a 
USB stick. Why? Because it's supposed to be able to be selected to emulate an 
A: floppy drive (or as C: or D:) instead of presenting itself as C: like the 
FreeDOS image does. Recall that the FreeDOS installer initially says there's no 
fixed disk, then shows D: as unpartitioned, but cannot make any writes to it - 
yet *does not return an error* when attempting to partition the already 
partitioned DOM in a WYSE Sx0 thin client.

I'd think that selectable boot drive/device emulation should be part of the 
FreeDOS setup, for systems that expect their hard drive (or other fixed 
storage) to be the only fixed storage, aside from perhaps a CD-ROM.
--
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] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Tom Ehlert]

> I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with
> FreeDOS. Mounted that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS
> install image and installed FreeDOS to the image copied from the
> DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that image back to the DOM. "Missing 
> Operating System".

forget about this 'Install FreeDOS' thing.

take the working DOM.

delete 'SET LANG=FR' from config.sys and autoexec.bat
replace command.com by the english version.

this should at least still boot, and speak your language.

everything else should already be in place as installed by your
colleague

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] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[E. Auer]

Hi again,


I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with FreeDOS.
Mounted that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS install image and
installed FreeDOS to the image copied from the DOM. Then I used
CloneDisk to write that image back to the DOM. "Missing Operating
System".


Then maybe the real PC and QEMU were configured to use different drive
geometries: For example QEMU supports LBA, but maybe your real PC BIOS
did not support LBA or did not have it enabled? Have you tested whether
things still booted in QEMU before you cloned the image back to the DOM?

When in doubt, you can always skip the SYS step during FreeDOS install
to keep most booting parts as they were in the previous raw image. Also,
a "missing operating system" message can be a symptom of bad XMS, EMS or
UMB driver configurations: Those might break proper disk access as soon
as the driver loads or as soon as XMS / EMS / UMB are actually used.

And when file access fails in the middle of config / autoexec, you may
get messages complaining about missing files, while the files actually
are still there.

Things you can try: 1. Boot from floppy and SYS the DOM again. 2. Use
F5 / F8 to skip all / part of the drivers to see if they caused your
problem in their current configuration and 3. Check your PC BIOS and
QEMU settings regarding LBA support and CHS geometries for the DOM to
see whether they match nicely. You can also tell SYS to use or avoid
LBA manually, but that should only be needed in exotic situations.

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

Re: [Freedos-user] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Gregg Eshelman via Freedos-user]

I used CloneDisk to rip a RAW image of the booting DOM with FreeDOS. Mounted 
that with Qemu. Booted Qemu with the FreeDOS install image and installed 
FreeDOS to the image copied from the DOM. Then I used CloneDisk to write that 
image back to the DOM. "Missing Operating System".
 

On Friday, January 5, 2018, 8:05:18 PM MST, Rugxulo  
wrote: 

Or why don't you install FreeDOS under VM to raw disk image, and then
dd it to the physical hard drive while under Linux. Then it should
boot correctly, right?  --
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] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Fri, Jan 5, 2018 at 5:13 PM, E. Auer  wrote:
>
> Possible explanation: The FreeDOS USB boot thing has a harddisk-
> style bootable disk image and the BIOS of your computer has some
> compatibility issue with the drive-renumbering caused by booting
> from USB and/or from using a "harddisk" boot image.

FreeDOS has at least three "fdisk" programs, so maybe FD fdisk [sic]
can't do it, but maybe try the others (e.g. xfdisk or spfdisk):

* https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/xfdisk/
* https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/spfdisk/

Actually, what version of FD fdisk are you using? IIRC, it wasn't
quite finalized, so there's some confusion between 1.2 and 1.3 series.
So maybe try whatever other version you're not already using:

* https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/fdisk/

Or would maybe Ranish Partition Manager work??

* http://www.ranish.com/part/
* https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/disk/ranish/

> A possible solution would be to use a FreeDOS boot FLOPPY or floppy image.

I did already suggest using floppy to him, but he didn't seem to
acknowledge or want it. Dunno.

> As you are able to use the MS DOS one, you will be able to use a
> FreeDOS one as well :-) As far as I can tell, you do not need a
> large install, just the "usual DOS stuff", so you can use some
> floppy distro like Ruffidea or Brezel or similar.

RUFFIDEA is too old, similarly BARE_DOS (although I still have them
available). I don't know offhand where Brezel is. And most other such
floppy images are all old, too (e.g. ODIN, Balder, Joris-8086, etc).
But 

> Maybe the other freedos-user fans can suggest a nice image :-)

This is a recent effort by me and meant to be a minimal (but easy and
convenient) starting point. By default, it comes as a 1.44 MB 3.5"
floppy .img (roughly only half filled) with a few essentials (FD
fdisk, format, sys).

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/unofficial/metados/

The idea is that you can modify it under modern VM (e.g. VBox or QEMU)
before writing it to physical floppy, if needed. GNU Mtools (under
Linux or similar) would also allow that, among various other methods
(e.g. mount loopback or whatever).

>> I found an "MS-DOS 7.1" boot floppy image and *this one* had no
>> problems booting the S30 with a USB floppy drive, wiping the DOM and
>> creating a fresh partition with FDISK, then rebooting and using
>> format c: /s
>> NOW it's booted to a DOS prompt from the DOM.

Win7 still has the ability to "make system floppy", which is a
slimmed-down, emergency, minimal MS-DOS image. RUFUS can use this, if
found. However, allegedly Win10 doesn't have that anymore. IIRC, in
recent years MSDN used to still sell full MS-DOS 6.x, but I'm not sure
anymore. (And there are still other DOSes still available online, too,
e.g. DR-DOS or ROM DOS.)

>> So I'll try FreeDOS again..
>> Nope. Same as before. Screen full of No Fixed disks present, followed
>> by a prompt to repartition D:, but it cannot touch it.
>> Does the Lite USB install make a log file to diagnose why it's not
>> working?

I suggest you try a different FDISK program. For that matter, you
could also maybe use GParted or cfdisk or whatever on Linux (or BSD or
...) to do it. Especially since you imply that Linux works fully on
that type of machine.

You may also need this:

* 
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/sys/sys-freedos-linux/

Or "maybe" this will help??

* http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/

Or why don't you install FreeDOS under VM to raw disk image, and then
dd it to the physical hard drive while under Linux. Then it should
boot correctly, right?

--
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] Now it gets odd Re: FreeDOS workaround for hidden IDE controller?

[E. Auer]

Possible explanation: The FreeDOS USB boot thing has a harddisk-
style bootable disk image and the BIOS of your computer has some
compatibility issue with the drive-renumbering caused by booting
from USB and/or from using a "harddisk" boot image. A possible
solution would be to use a FreeDOS boot FLOPPY or floppy image.
As you are able to use the MS DOS one, you will be able to use a
FreeDOS one as well :-) As far as I can tell, you do not need a
large install, just the "usual DOS stuff", so you can use some
floppy distro like Ruffidea or Brezel or similar. You could even
use the always-fresh automated build floppy images, but those
will have almost no tools and drivers included: They simply are
provided for having the freshest kernel online in bootable form.

Maybe the other freedos-user fans can suggest a nice image :-)

Regards, Eric


I found an "MS-DOS 7.1" boot floppy image and *this one* had no
problems booting the S30 with a USB floppy drive, wiping the DOM and
creating a fresh partition with FDISK, then rebooting and using
format c: /s
NOW it's booted to a DOS prompt from the DOM.



So I'll try FreeDOS again..
Nope. Same as before. Screen full of No Fixed disks present, followed
by a prompt to repartition D:, but it cannot touch it.
Does the Lite USB install make a log file to diagnose why it's not 
working?




--
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