Hi,
While the USB media is technically a running version of FreeDOS,
the USB install media is not configured to be used as a portable installation of FreeDOS.
It is configured for the single purpose of installing the OS and not for general usage.
If you do not want to install FreeDOS onto a hard disk and cannot use the LiveCD, you still
have a couple of options. For example, you could install FreeDOS into a Virtual Machine or
turn the USB install media into a portable version of FreeDOS.
It is very simple to turn the USB install media into a portable version of FreeDOS.
1) boot the USB install media.
2) quit the installer.
3) You will be returned to command prompt on drive C:. This is because the internal drives get
Pushed up a letter by the BIOS when booting from a USB hard disk.
4) change directories to FDOS-x86. This is a copy of the Floppy Edition installer that is included
on the USB media.
5) Run the Floppy Edition installer. This is a different installer than the one you see when booting
the USB media. By default, the Floppy Edition will want to install to drive C:. Since the BIOS
pushed the internal hard drives to D (and higher) to make room for the USB drive as C:, this
Is fine. The Floppy Edition installs only packages which are part of FreeDOS BASE.
6) You can select all the default options in that installer. However, it will detect a previous installed
OS. This is the version of FreeDOS that is configured for installing the OS. You can opt out of
backing it up. It will only be wasting space on the drive. If you do back it up, you can delete the
backup files by hand later.
7) After install has complete. Reboot.
8) You will now have a portable version of FreeDOS on the USB.
9) You can delete the SETUP.BAT in the root directory. It was used by the standard installer which
was overwritten and no longer available. You can also delete the FDOS-x86 directory that contains
the Floppy Edition installer.
10) You can now use FDIMPLES to install or remove any of the normal or standard packages which are
also included on the FullUSB Install media. If you are satisfied with what packages are installed and
do not wish to add any additional ones, you can delete the PACKAGES directory and free up 100’s
of megabytes on the USB Stick for the installation of other software.
:-)
Jerome
Hi,
I am using FreeDOS 1.3 on a USB stick.
On booting up, it ask for language selection, (English), and then asks whether to install to hard disk, (refused), so it returns to DOS. I have made no amendments to either the fdconfig.sys or fdauto.bat files, which are exactly as provided in the original FreeDOS 1.3 download zip.
Quoting the contents of fdconfig.sys :
!COUNTRY=001,858:\FREEDOS\BIN\COUNTRY.SYS
!LASTDRIVE=Z
!BUFFERS=20
!FILES=40
DOS=HIGH
DOS=UMB
DOSDATA=UMB
DEVICE=\FREEDOS\BIN\HIMEMX.EXE
SHELLHIGH=\FREEDOS\BIN\COMMAND.COM \FREEDOS\BIN /E:2048 /P=\FDAUTO.BAT
On 2025-02-27 18:57, Jim Hall via Freedos-user wrote:
Let's start with 2 quick questions: what version (what distribution) of FreeDOS did you install, and what do you see first when FreeDOS starts up on the computer?
I hope you're running FreeDOS 1.3 .. or maybe the release candidate for FreeDOS 1.4. Both of these are available from the
www.freedos.org website.
Both of these versions show a menu when FreeDOS starts up. It's important to know what option you're selecting in that menu, because XMS support will be provided by one of those options.
There should be a FDCONFIG.SYS file that comes with FreeDOS. Can you look in this file? Is it a long file, or a short one, or is it empty? Did you edit this file since installing FreeDOS?
I am new to FreeDOS and have run into a problem whereby some traditional MSDOS programs will not run, complaining about "XMS allocation error".
In MSDOS the solution is an additional line in config.sys reading "device=emm386.exe ram", but there does not appear to be a emm386.exe equivalent in FreeDOS. I would very much appreciate an explanation, please, about how to get around this problem.
Thank you
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