On 4/1/12 12:56 PM, Bernd Blaauw wrote: > Op 1-4-2012 18:22, Bob Cochran schreef: > >> Yesterday, I did a lot of work aimed at making a bootable FreeDOS USB >> key. I looked through the FreeDOS website to find help for creating such >> a key. Others on this forum have kindly helped me with creating a >> bootable CD back in January; this time I wanted a bootable USB drive >> with FreeDOS. The specific reason is to allow flashing of an LSI SAS HBA >> controller card to what they call "IT Mode". > If you've got Windows, then the tool RUFUS ( http://rufus.akeo.ie/ ) is > a nice starter, as it partitions and formats an USB Flash Drive and puts > DOS on it (or something else, if pointing to an ISO file).
Hi Bernd, I use one of: Max OS X, Fedora, or (more recently now) FreeBSD. I may get into Xen or VMWare down the road because of my great interest in virtualization. > > I'm planning to release the next FreeDOS bootable CD-ROM image file as a > so-called "iso-hybrid" file, which has no disadvantages to a normal ISO > (except maybe size increased to nearest megabyte) but can be written to > USB-drive (or harddisk) using a raw-writing tool like 'dd' that exists > on Linux. This is neat! >> I would like to suggest that a link to making a bootable USB drive be >> put on the FreeDOS website -- specifically the home page. This would be >> a huge help to people like me. I ended up having to Google for >> instructions, and found a download for a FreeDOS 1.0 usb drive. > Interesting, got a link by any chance? I used http://goebelmeier.de/bootstick/ I'll look at the link below later today. > ( > http://bsd.ee/~hadara/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/dell_freedos-768x1024.jpg, > also interesting) > >> I succeeded in flashing my LSI card with the help of FreeDOS. It turns >> out that LSI does support the SAS2FLASH utility on several operating >> systems, including FreeDOS 1.0. Also supported on several systems is the >> MegaCLI utility. I am not sure if the Megarec utility is likewise >> supported. It is possible I could have used SAS2FLASH on FreeBSD, but I >> also needed Megarec, and I could only find a DOS version of that. So I >> opted for using FreeDOS. > No idea what all these LSI tools are. Specifically for flashing, there's > also the flashrom tool (www.flashrom.org) that works on Linux and has a > DOS port at http://ra.openbios.org/~idwer/flashrom/dos/ > (thanks for making me look that up, it's been updated!). I want to add a large number of hard drives to my system under FreeNAS ( http://www.freenas.org/ ). One can quickly run out of SATA connectors on a motherboard, which I did. To deal with this, I bought a used IBM M1015 serial attached SCSI (SAS) Host Bus Adapter (HBA). The adapter is really an LSI product --> http://www.lsi.com/products/storagecomponents/Pages/LSISAS9210-8i.aspx If I flash this adapter into IT Mode, it is compatible with FreeNAS. I can connect up to 8 hard drives to it using SFF-8087 Forward cables. What FreeDOS did for me is allow me to use the LSI software tools to flash the adapter into IT mode and also update the adapter's BIOS to the latest one. This in turn allowed me to connect 4 hard drives totaling 7 terabytes in space and free up 4 SATA connectors on the motherboard. I am so pleased. And I can add another 4 hard drives with this one adapter. > >> I do hope that someone visiting the FreeDOS website will soon be able to >> find quick instructions for creating bootable USB drives in addition to >> the normal install directions. > Jim Hall is working on a website change, hopefully he'll include your > feedback. Yes, I hope so. FreeDOS can be a massive help to people if easily accessible, authoritative "How Tos" are there. There is also a trust issue: if one can get support from the FreeDOS website, there is greater trust in the product since FreeDOS is the "go-to place". Just as one trusts microsoft.com more highly than a personal website for Windows support, one would trust freedos.org (and freedos-user) more highly for FreeDOS support. Cheers, Bob ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF email is sponsosred by: Try Windows Azure free for 90 days Click Here http://p.sf.net/sfu/sfd2d-msazure _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
