On Sun, Jun 2, 2024 at 6:31 AM Bernd Böckmann <be...@boeckmann.io> wrote: > > Hi Jim, > > > Am 02.06.2024 um 01:45 schrieb Jim Hall via Freedos-devel > > <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>: > > > > > (I created a single partition on the 1.9G drive, formatted and > > installed "plain DOS" to that, everything works fine) > > > > How did you create the partition? Did you run FDISK or did you re-use > an existing 1.9G partition shipped with the original image?
To be clear, by "everything works fine," I meant "everything works fine in QEMU. This step was before writing the image back to the CF card. I used FDISK from the FreeDOS T2406 install media. Specifically I booted T2406 in QEMU .. deleted the partitions .. rebooted T2406 .. created new partition .. rebooted T2406 .. did the rest of the install steps as usual. > > It stops at "Loading FreeDOS" and just hangs there > > > This comes from the (FAT32 LBA?) volume boot code installed by the SYS > command. There can be several reasons why it fails, the most probable > being the partition layout. But it may also be that the 386 does not > support LBA, and SYS puts the LBA-only loader onto the disk while > running under QEMU. This might make the VBR code stuck in an infinite > loop, according to the source. Or, there is some incompatibility with > the BIOS... It's an AMIBIOS (version 1.16) from 1996. With what I have seen so far, I agree that the issue is likely to be limitations in the BIOS. But I'll keep experimenting with different configs to work it out. > You might try doing a "SYS X: /FORCE:CHS" under QEMU and then testing > again with your 386 to see if the FAT32 CHS loader works. This is not > documented via SYS /? but should work according to the source. You > can find out if LBA is supported by starting FDISK via FDISK /XO on > the 386. In the top line there will be an indication "LBA" if FDISK > (and probably the other FreeDOS parts) make use of it. I'll run that FDISK command in an upcoming test. > If the 10MB partition can be booted from, we have to take into account > that this is a FAT16 partition, and accordingly the FAT12/16 volume > boot code is installed. This supports both LBA and non-LBA access. > > Jim, can you upload the non-working image and the working 10MB test > image, so I can have a look at the relevant data structures (MBR etc.)? > > https://nextcloud.iww.rwth-aachen.de/index.php/s/BRXqZDGasw74NN9 I'm uploading two files to you: 10mb.cf is the "install" I did yesterday with a single 10MB partition. It's not really an "install," though. That's where I just did FDISK then FORMAT /S ... but at least it booted to a prompt. :-) newinstall.cf is a test I just did, repeating one of my tests from yesterday. It also ends up getting stuck at "Loading FreeDOS" and just hangs. For both of these images, I installed it using direct access to the CF card: $ sudo qemu-system-i386 -enable-kvm -m 32 -hda /dev/sda -cdrom T2406LIVE.iso -boot order=d And then made the images using dd: $ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=newinstall.cf 3637872+0 records in 3637872+0 records out 1862590464 bytes (1.9 GB, 1.7 GiB) copied, 97.3253 s, 19.1 MB/s > What BIOS is this machine using? AMIBIOS (version 1.16) from 1996 > As Jerome said, the FreeDOS installer will re-use an existing partition > layout. So what you can try (not 100% sure you already did that): start > with an empty 1.9G image and install FreeDOS onto it via QEMU. The > installer will create and format a partition. Then, try to boot it > with your 386. That's what I've done in every case: boot the installer .. run FDISK to delete partitions .. reboot .. run FDISK to create partition(s) .. reboot .. do the rest of the install. I didn't want to "inherit" whatever partition scheme they provided on the system already. I figured it was good to show everything could be done with FreeDOS tools. :-) > Thinking of this LBA, non-LBA thing we might investigate if it is > possible to merge the LBA and non-LBA FAT32 VBR code into one. But that > is for another topic. We also might replace the loaders with some other > one. If I remember correctly ECMs lDOS loaders have the capability... I think if we're seeing devices like the Book8088 and Pocket386, that's probably a good suggestion. But as you said, that's probably best for another thread. Jim _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
