On Sat, 28 Jan 2017, Alexandre Souza wrote:
Simple way I got several XT-IDE working:
- Boot with freedos boot disk
- FDISK /MBR
- FDISK and create ONE 31MB partition (note it is 31MB and not 32MB)
It SHOULD be possible to create an almost 2GB partition with DOS 3.31 or
above. Has to be "almost 2GB", since size is -2147483649 to 2147483647,
instead of 0 to 4294967295 ("almost 4GB")
31MB means that that partition is probably FAT12, usable even with DOS
2.00 to 3.30.
Why the FDISK /MBR , particularly followed by FDISK ? That rewrites the
Master Boot Record, which includes the partition table, which is then
also done by the FDISK.
FDISK /MBR (formerly undocumented) was very handy by itself for removing
boot sector virus, without altering anything else.
- Reboot
not normally required in MS-DOS; a FREEDOS quirk?
- Format C: /s /u (the /u is very important)
/u was added with 6.00? prevents FORMAT from paying attention to previous
content, and objecting if you format different parameters
- REBOOT. There is a bug on freedos that a copy command gives a heap
corruption after a format
That's too bad. Not normally required with MS-DOS.
- Do whatever you want, even creating a D: partition of 2GB
Prior to DOS 3.31, there were some third party DOS extenders for larger
drives, even some kludges to use MSCDEX (network redirector in 3.10 and
above) to make that computer see the drive as being on a network instead
of local (the way MS-DOS could see a 2/3 GB CD-ROM)
