13 Mar
2006
13 Mar
'06
5:35 p.m.
Another DOS question! :)
I've got a laptop that currently has Win2k and Debian Linux on it, along with
a small FAT partition (it's actually FAT32 currently, but I can change that
easily enough)
I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the machine - but the
laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from a DOS floppy and
run SYS that way.
So is there a way of putting the necessary files on there from either Windows
or Linux such that DOS will boot? Can't remember how MSDOS does it's boot
process now, but I assume that certain files (io.sys for one) need to be in
certain locations on the FAT partition or something?
At one point I would have known how to do this, but the info's long since
fallen out of my brain...
(Currently I'm booting Debian / Win2k from Grub - it should handle booting
MSDOS too though).
Before I shoot myself in the foot, are there any other gotchas (like MSDOS
needing to be the first partition on the drive or anything nuts like that)?
The FAT partition is about 2GB into the disk - I seem to recall that a FAT
partition can't be more than 2GB in size, but presumably providing the BIOS
can see the whole disk DOS won't care about the offset to the start of the
partition?
(All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the machine there in
place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If I can get
MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can boot the Slackware
installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of Slackware across the network
- talk about complicated!!)
Ok, long email - will shut up now! :-)
cheers
Jules
13 Mar
13 Mar
5:37 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
(All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on
the machine there
in place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If I
can get MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can boot
the Slackware installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of
Slackware across the network - talk about complicated!!)
Why not mount the drive in another machine, and install slackware from
there?
Gordon.
6:04 p.m.
Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
Jules Richardson wrote:
Yes, that's my backup plan - if I can find a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter (or
make
one). I'm trying to avoid pulling apart working hardware at the moment!
Hmmm, or my firewall box has a 2.5" IDE connector on board; I could stuff a
SCSI card in one of the PCI slots and boot from a SCSI CDROM, but install to
the 2.5" IDE disk I suppose...
Dennis Boone wrote:
(All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux
on the machine there
in place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If
I can get MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can
boot the Slackware installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of
Slackware across the network - talk about complicated!!)
Why not mount the drive in another machine, and install slackware from
there? 2. Boot from a USB stick. (If your hardware is new
enough.)
Unfortunately not. CDROM, floppy (which I don't have) or hard disk only...
I'm just wondering what SYS actually does - perhaps io.sys and the like
*don't* actually need to be anywhere special on the drive (I think they
probably need to be hidden though). Maybe SYS just sets up the MBR with the
location of the necessary files - in which case, that's something that the
Grub setup should also do.
Hmm. So maybe I just need to copy the right DOS files to the FAT partition,
run the Grub installer, and it'll all automagically work - can't hurt for me
to try, anyway!
cheers
Jules
14 Mar
14 Mar
3:46 p.m.
On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 11:04:06PM +0000, Jules Richardson wrote:
Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
Depending on what you really need, you might want to check out freedos,
which has bootable cd images available to install from.
Pat
Jules Richardson wrote:
> (All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the machine there
>in place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If
>I can get MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can
>boot the Slackware installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of
>Slackware across the network - talk about complicated!!)
Unfortunately not. CDROM, floppy (which I don't have) or hard disk only... 
13 Mar
13 Mar
5:43 p.m.
I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and
triple-boot the machine -
but the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from
a DOS floppy and run SYS that way.
Three thoughts come to mind:
1. Netboot MS-DOS. Haven't done it myself, but it seems to be possible
based on things I've read online.
2. Boot from a USB stick. (If your hardware is new enough.)
3. Start a debian installer from the existing partition, and create
a new Linux install in the "dos" partition. Use that to bootstrap
the re-install of the larger partition.
4. Carefully lick MS-DOS bits into place using mtools et al from the
debian partition.
All of this kind of stuff seems to require recursive approximation.*
Having other machines around to use as crutches always helps.
De
* i.e. trial and (mostly) error
6:04 p.m.
On Monday 13 March 2006 05:35 pm, Jules Richardson wrote:
Another DOS question! :)
I've got a laptop that currently has Win2k and Debian Linux on it, along
with a small FAT partition (it's actually FAT32 currently, but I can change
that easily enough)
I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the machine - but
the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from a DOS
floppy and run SYS that way.
So is there a way of putting the necessary files on there from either
Windows or Linux such that DOS will boot? Can't remember how MSDOS does
it's boot process now, but I assume that certain files (io.sys for one)
need to be in certain locations on the FAT partition or something?
DOS needs three files to boot, command.com, io.sys, and msdos.sys. Those
last two are given different names if we're talking about IBM's version. In
earlier versions of dos they needed to be the first files on the drive, but
I think that this requirement went away at some point, though I couldn't
say for sure when that happened.
At one point I would have known how to do this, but
the info's long since
fallen out of my brain...
I know what you mean. :-)
(Currently I'm booting Debian / Win2k from Grub -
it should handle booting
MSDOS too though).
Before I shoot myself in the foot, are there any other gotchas (like MSDOS
needing to be the first partition on the drive or anything nuts like that)?
The FAT partition is about 2GB into the disk - I seem to recall that a FAT
partition can't be more than 2GB in size, but presumably providing the BIOS
can see the whole disk DOS won't care about the offset to the start of the
partition?
That sounds reasonable to me, but that doesn't necessarily mean much. :-)
Most of what I did under dos back when was on way smaller drives...
(All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on
the machine there in
place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If I can
get MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can boot the
Slackware installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of Slackware
across the network - talk about complicated!!)
Hmm. There oughta be some easier way. Ever played with tomsrtbt? Worth a
try, anyhow.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
7:33 p.m.
Roy J. Tellason wrote:
DOS needs three files to boot, command.com, io.sys,
and msdos.sys. Those
last two are given different names if we're talking about IBM's version. In
earlier versions of dos they needed to be the first files on the drive, but
I think that this requirement went away at some point, though I couldn't
say for sure when that happened.
Instead of io.sys and msdos.sys, PC-DOS has ibmbio.com and ibmdos.com.
Peace... Sridhar
6:11 p.m.
On 3/13/2006 at 10:35 PM Jules Richardson wrote:
So is there a way of putting the necessary files on
there from either
Windows
or Linux such that DOS will boot? Can't remember how MSDOS does it's boot
process now, but I assume that certain files (io.sys for one) need to be
in
certain locations on the FAT partition or something?
I'll assume that you're installing a late version of MSDOS, like version 7.
IIRC, the only thing about IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS entries is that they must
lie in the first directory sector and should be kept as contiguous files.
You can copy them over to the partition yourself, making sure that the boot
sector information is correct for the partition type (FAT32 partitions use
different boot code than FAT16 ones). Customarily, MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS
have the system attribute bit set, but DOS'll run just fine without that.
Also, you'll need to copy COMMAND.COM over as a bare minimum to get you to
a prompt.
Cheers,
Chuck
7:34 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
IIRC, the only thing about IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS
entries is that they must
lie in the first directory sector and should be kept as contiguous files.
You can copy them over to the partition yourself, making sure that the boot
sector information is correct for the partition type (FAT32 partitions use
different boot code than FAT16 ones).
Hmmm, that's the bit I'm missing - the boot sector code. And I can't figure
out a way of creating it (short of hand-crafting it) without having a DOS
floppy to boot from on a floppy drive that I don't have!
(Unsurprisingly, Linux's FAT filesystem creation tool can't create the boot
sector, and nor can Win2k's)
I don't particularly feel like hand-crafting it myself; hazy memory says that
there are various partition geometry details in there (rather than DOS just
getting the info from the MBR) - get that wrong and I'd hose the whole disk...
Time to look at other options I think!
9:50 p.m.
Go here:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
It's a boot CD that creates a virtual floppy and boots from that, allowing
you to install a set of MS-DOS system files for boot. You should then be
able to copy the other stuff over and run a setup.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 4:36 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: manually installing MSDOS...
Another DOS question! :)
I've got a laptop that currently has Win2k and Debian Linux
on it, along with a small FAT partition (it's actually FAT32
currently, but I can change that easily enough)
I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the
machine - but the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I
can't just boot from a DOS floppy and run SYS that way.
So is there a way of putting the necessary files on there
from either Windows or Linux such that DOS will boot? Can't
remember how MSDOS does it's boot process now, but I assume
that certain files (io.sys for one) need to be in certain
locations on the FAT partition or something?
At one point I would have known how to do this, but the
info's long since fallen out of my brain...
(Currently I'm booting Debian / Win2k from Grub - it should
handle booting MSDOS too though).
Before I shoot myself in the foot, are there any other
gotchas (like MSDOS needing to be the first partition on the
drive or anything nuts like that)?
The FAT partition is about 2GB into the disk - I seem to
recall that a FAT partition can't be more than 2GB in size,
but presumably providing the BIOS can see the whole disk DOS
won't care about the offset to the start of the partition?
(All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the
machine there in place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too
flakey to boot from. If I can get MSDOS on there by copying
from a remote machine then I can boot the Slackware installer
from MSDOS and then install the rest of Slackware across the network
- talk about complicated!!)
Ok, long email - will shut up now! :-)
cheers
Jules
14 Mar
14 Mar
4:50 a.m.
On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:35:47 +0000
Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and
triple-boot the machine -
but the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from a
DOS floppy and run SYS that way.
Hmmm. Maybe you can try somthing like DOSemu or
bochs, that emulates a
DOS environement under Linux. Then you can use floppy disk image files
instead real floppies and install to the unused partition from within
the "DOS box".
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
4:56 a.m.
On 14/03/06, Jochen Kunz <jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> wrote:
On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:35:47 +0000
Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
How flakey is your cd drive, you can get most versions of dos on cd from here :
http://www.allbootdisks.com/
Dan
I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and
triple-boot the machine -
but the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from a
DOS floppy and run SYS that way.
Hmmm. Maybe you can try somthing like DOSemu or
bochs, that emulates a
DOS environement under Linux. Then you can use floppy disk image files
instead real floppies and install to the unused partition from within
the "DOS box".
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
6706
days inactive
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