Op 5-7-2011 15:54, Chris D schreef: > What I found was that the boot floppy created is incomplete and that > therefore the installation doesn't work. I got around that with help > from this group but found that this did not install a boot menu to allow > me to carry on using the existing PC-DOS, contrary to the Install wiki > which says: > > "If you install to a C: drive which already has another DOS or Windows > 95/98 on it, the installer will often be able to automatically install a > boot menu and keep FreeDOS configuration separate from the config and > autoexec of the other DOS or Windows."
Setting up multiboot menu's is a bit tricky indeed, as DOS is quite limited in recognising situations. For example the ideal FreeDOS drive to install to is a C: which is: * part of a harddisk * harddisk is first harddisk on IDE/ATA/SATA controller * partition is large enough * partition has enough free space * partition is writable * partition uses FAT16/FAT32 filesystem * partition is formatted * bootsector can be identified * partition is active * partition is category "primary". Nearly no tool is able to detect all of this. > Okay, it says "will often be able to" but in my case it didn't. There > is probably a way to get it to work but at this point I concluded that > it's just not worth the effort. For a bootmenu there's multiple options: * operating system's own capabilities (like Win9x and NT have) * Syslinux bootloader * GRUB bootloader * other bootloaders * FreeDOS's metakern bootloader. Setting up that metakern bootloader is something that should have worked. Basicly it involves saving/generating some bootsectors as files, then appending those files to the main boot program, then overwriting the drive's bootsector to go find MetaKern. The commands to do so are quite complex though I'm afraid, involving certain versions of FreeDOS SYS program. FreeDOS SYS has the ability to create bootsectors for various non-FreeDOS setups but still has limitations, like being unable to generate that MetaKern file by itself (some versions had it in the past) or creating bootsectors for Syslinux (hardcoded sectors, doesn't survive defragging and partition resizing) and ReactOS's FreeLDR. I'm considering switching to Syslinux by default in case of multiboot. It would require a FreeDOS menu at the end of installation with a "would you like to (over)write the bootsector for drive C: ?" with 1) No thanks, I'll worry about bootup myself 2) Yes please (this could prevent previous operating systems, if any, from working) 3) Create a Syslinux menu (386+ only) > What I will do is to start again from scratch, set up a dual boot of Have fun getting a working situation, occasionally a challenge is quite fun. > hard drive was 200 Mb but I put a 1 Gb drive in, running OnTrack Disk > Manager to overcome the BIOS restriction. I've always disliked those overlay programs, messing up way too many programs. > Because it's my DOS computer it was the natural choice to try out > FreeDOS. I also have FreeDOS on other computers, including under dosemu > in Linux, but those are all multi-boot machines and DOS never seems to > get used as much as the other operating systems. > > What I've also learned from this experiment is that the users are > helpful, knowledgeable and friendly, so I'm not entirely giving up on > FreeDOS! You're welcome. All feedback is usefull as it can only improve things :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All of the data generated in your IT infrastructure is seriously valuable. Why? It contains a definitive record of application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2d-c2 _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
