I had a lot of trouble installing FreeDOS onto an old laptop, and here is how I got it to work.
Do you have a Windows computer? I have only tested this using Windows, but it should work on a Mac. I'm not sure about Linux, as I haven't run any virtualization software on Linux before. I installed Oracle Virtualbox and created a virtual DOS machine. The important part here is to create a VHD hard drive, so you can access the files later. Once FreeDOS is installed on the virtual machine, connect the hard drive you wish to use to your computer. I am making many assumptions here, but you should be able to use a USB adapter, Format the drive to FAT32. At this point you should be able to get your Virtualbox DOS machine to see the drive, (I am at work, and cannot give you the exact commands, but if you're really stuck, I can look it up later) >From your virtual DOS machine format the drive, using the /S switch, to transfer the system files. I did try and xcopy the contents of the C drive to the external drive from the virtual DOS machine, but feel free to try "xcopy c:\*.* d:\ /s /e" without the quotes, and assuming that your external drive is D:\ If that doesn't work, exit the virtual machine, and find where the virtual hard drive, (.vhd) is saved, and open it with 7-Zip. You can then drag the contents over to the external drive. This is how I managed to transfer the FreeDOS files to an external hard drive, and once I'd plugged it into the laptop, it worked just fine. Hope this helps. Let us know how you get on, or if you need any further information. On Mon, 14 Oct 2024 at 10:59, G.W. Haywood via Freedos-user < freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > Hi there, > > On Sun, 13 Oct 2024, Michael Rakijas via Freedos-user wrote: > > > ... I changed back to the 1.4 GB cartridge ... FreeDOS would not > reinstall. > > ... Something really funky is afoot. > > I'm not sure the conclusion there is warranted but I'll admit that I > haven't been carefully following the thread. > > Be aware of the difference between a Master Boot Record (a disc which > has been partitioned) and a Volume Boot Record (a disc which has not). > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_sector#Partition_tables > > If it were my drive I'd wipe it clean with a random Linux box using > > dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<device_id> > > and then format it with three 512MByte FAT16 partitions using whatever > formatting utililty was handy (obviously one of the partitions would > not be quite as big as 512MBytes). During the formatting I'd tell it > I wanted a DOS MBR on there at sector 0. If the formatting utility > can't write a DOS MBR then under DOS you can try something like > > fdisk /mbr > > or search online for other ways of writing a MBR. The MBR is tiny > and it shouldn't take more than a fraction of a second to write it. > > If this or the formatting utility say that sector 0 is bad you know > where the problem is. I don't think I've ever seen a drive which had > any good sectors at all which had a bad sector 0, so I think that's > perhaps unlikely but it *is* possible. > > Assuming this formatting went well enough I'd try installing FreeDOS > from a USB stick (because that's what I keep lying around, I never > bother with CDs any more) making sure that I use the defaults for > *everything* so that nobody could later suggest I've done anything > funky if I need to explain what I did. I'd make copious notes about > what I did and what I saw in my lab book. If you don't keep a lab > book now would be a good time to start. I still have mine from the > late 1970s. The first thing you write in there each time you open it > is preferably a horizontal ruled line followed by the date and time, > and what you plan to do in the following section. Then *everything* > that you do and see. Not just the bits that seem interesting. > > If you don't get anywhere get back to us with all your notes. If it > seems like a lot of notes, scan them and put them on a file sharing > service somewhere for us. The first thing we want to know that the > disc is good. That at least shouldn't be too hard to establish. > > -- > > 73, > Ged. > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >
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