Hi Thomas, >> "I want to boot to freeDOS using a CD ROM.
That should be easy. >> Then I want to insert a memory stick into the computer and copy >> a file from the Windows HDD onto the memory stick. That can be complicated. Often, the BIOS only helps DOS with USB access after you have actually booted from the USB stick. And separate USB drivers for DOS may or may not work for you. The next problem: If your Windows uses NTFS - almost every modern Windows does - you will NOT see your Windows disk in DOS at all. So it would be a LOT easier to boot Linux from CD or USB if your goal is to copy some files to or from a Windows disk. > I was trying to figure out how to use an USB Stick on a > FreeDOS Harddisk installed system. This is absolutely crucial > to me, otherwise how would I be able to get something out or > in to the computer?? (I definitely don’t want networking!) I would have said networking, but... > My floppy-drive is USB, too :( See above. BIOS tends to support USB for DOS if you boot from the USB device in question, but often not if you do not. And DOS drivers do not support all hardware brands. So I guess I would again say use Linux to copy files ;-) You also seem to have Windows on that computer, so you can also use Windows to copy files. Windows supports both USB and networking without big problems. > I just installed FreeDos on an ITX and harddisk. I can > read and write on the disk and the Usb Stick, if I boot > directly from the Stick. It doesn’t work the other way > round, i.e. booting from the disk and trying to D: > (=USB Stick) to read/write. Bret Johnsons USButils > „driver.com“ shows me that dos recognises something, > but not „enough“ to access when booted from the Disk. As predicted above. > I formated the disk with FAT32. Maybe not good? Should it be FAT16? The default version of FreeDOS supports FAT32, LBA and MBR. If your Computer uses GPT instead of MBR for the partitioning, FreeDOS will not see and partitions on your harddisk or SSD. If your disk is larger than 2 TB then it will certainly use GPT. If your BIOS is older, it may cause problems for DOS to access data beyond the first 128 GB of the disk or even less. > So: Would I have similar USB-issues using Freedos via EMU2 > on a raspberry?? Maybe we need to find out... EMU2 is a bad example, but if you look at QEMU or DOSEMU2 or DOSBOX-X, you always run DOS in simulated hardware. So everything outside your DOS window will be "connected" to your Linux. For example if you try to print something in the window, it will not talk directly to your printer at all. Instead, the simulation will capture the print data and, if you have configured things properly, send them to your Linux printer driver. Similarily, all floppy, CD-ROM or harddisk partitions in your DOS window will just be a simulation. For example they could be a disk image or the contents of a directory visible to Linux. Obviously, when you open your USB stick in Linux, it will become visible in a directory and you could tell your DOS window, such as DOSEMU2, that this directory has to be used to simulate a drive letter of your choice. However, as you will use many different USB sticks in everyday life, I recommend to just use the file manager of Linux to drag and drop files between your USB sticks and some fixed directory inside your home directory which you use as a simulated C: drive or similar. Then you do not have to change your DOSEMU2 config all the time. Another nice thing is that the simulations can be told to simulate a Sound Blaster 16 soundcard which you will not find for a Raspberry Pi or any modern PC. The sound data are captured and forwarded to whatever your Linux is configured to use. Maybe the HDMI sound of your TV, for which you will certainly not have DOS drivers :-) Regards, Eric _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
