How to make HDD bootable to DOS via Win7 ?

[liaoo]

Hi all,
I have one HDD with size 2GByte and want to make it bootable to DOS. How do I achieve this goal via Win7 ?

In Win7 this HDD can be detected and can be formatted. But I have no idea how to transfer the DOS system files onto it ... is there any tool available ?

* I found the tool which can make USB flash bootable to DOS, but for HDD seems useless...

Thanks in advance !

[Alexei A. Frounze]

If you can run DOS from a floppy or flash stick, you can then
partition and format any disk with FDISK and FORMAT and you can then
transfer DOS system files with SYS.

Alex

[Auric__]

Alternately, if you don't have a floppy drive and you can't get DOS to work
from a flash drive, boot from a DOS livecd. For example, here's the official
FreeDOS 1.0 livecd:

http://bit.ly/1XSRxzc

Redirects to (watch the wordwrap):

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-
stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.0/3sep2006/fdfullcd.iso

Once you're in DOS you can SYS the drive.

--
I have squandered my days with plans of many things.
This was not among them.

[Rod Pemberton]

On Tue, 08 Dec 2015 02:04:12 -0500, liaoo <jimmy...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have one HDD with size 2GByte and want to make it bootable to DOS.
> How do I achieve this goal via Win7 ?
>
> In Win7 this HDD can be detected and can be formatted.

Obviously, you'll need to format as either FAT16 or FAT32, and
not as NTFS. According to Microsoft, 2GB is the largest FAT16
partition accessible by MS-DOS or Windows. So, you have your
choice of FAT16 or FAT32, but you're right at the FAT16 limit
for a single partition.

If you do partition and format with Win 7, it should perform the
functions of DOS' FDISK and FORMAT commands for you. If you use
DOS, you'll have to use FDISK to partition and FORMAT to write
the file system.

If it's for MS-DOS 6.22 or earlier, you probably want FAT16. If
the DOS version supports LFNs, e.g., DOSes for Windows 98/SE/ME,
then you'll want FAT32.

> But I have no idea how to transfer the DOS system files onto it ...
> is there any tool available ?

The system files have to be written to specific disk locations.

It's easiest to use the existing DOS command for the DOS version
which you're installing. This command is usually named SYS. To
run it, you'll need a floppy, cd-rom, usb stick, etc which is
already bootable into DOS. One of these usually requires some
tool for an existing OS to write or burn or an existing DOS to set
up the image.

Once you have a bootable DOS image written or burned or DOS setup,
boot it. On a newer PC, you'll used the BBS menu (F11) to select
it. On an older PC, it'll either cycle to the device, or you'll
have to change BIOS settings. Once booted, run the SYS util
against the harddrive to install the files. You'll also need to
copy COMMAND.COM to your drive.

E.g., if your boot floppy/cd-rom/usb-stick is A:

A:\SYS C:


If you don't have a boot disk for your specific DOS version,
but for another version of the same DOS, you can still use the
SYS to put the files into the correct disk location. Afterwards,
you'll need to copy your DOS system files onto the ones installed
by SYS, overwriting them, by using the COPY command, not XCOPY.
This method works for MS-DOS and FreeDOS, and perhaps others.

The files installed by SYS are IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS for MS-DOS,
or IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM for IBM DOS or OpenDOS/DR-DOS, or
KERNEL.SYS for FreeDOS. So, you probably can't use FreeDOS
SYS command with other DOSes, since it only installs one file.


Rod Pemberton


--
How to kill Facebook. Tell a bunch of fourth graders that
only old people use Facebook. Wait eight years.

[rug...@gmail.com]

Hi,

On Thursday, December 10, 2015 at 4:27:58 AM UTC-6, Rod Pemberton wrote:
>
> The files installed by SYS are IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS for MS-DOS,
> or IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM for IBM DOS or OpenDOS/DR-DOS, or
> KERNEL.SYS for FreeDOS. So, you probably can't use FreeDOS
> SYS command with other DOSes, since it only installs one file.

DISKCOPY.DLL (in Win7) holds a bootable floppy .img (used by Explorer
to make a system floppy, IIRC), but there is no SYS.COM included.
(They probably don't want the support burden of anyone accidentally
wiping their Windows installs. Also, allegedly Win10 doesn't support
even this much anymore, no surprise.)

I've not tried, but yes, FreeDOS' SYS does claim to support other
DOSes:

1). http://www.freedos.org/kernel/sys.txt
2). http://home.mnet-online.de/willybilly/fdhelp-dos/en/hhstndrd/base/sys.htm

[JJ]

Use BOOTICE:

<http://www.ipauly.com/2015/11/15/bootice/>

Screenshot:

<http://www.ipauly.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/bootice.gif>

The web page is in Chinese, Google Translated it to this:

[quote]
BOOTICE is a startup related maintenance gadget, mainly for the
installation, repair, backup and restore disk (mirroring) MBR or partition
PBR; editing the Windows startup configuration file BCD; management UEFI
boot entry; VHD / VHDX file management. It also has a disk sector editor,
disk fills, partition management, disk partitioning and formatting, GRUB4DOS
menu editing functions.
[/quote]

The screenshot shows that the program is in Chinese, but it'll show as
English if you're not running it under Windows using Chinese language.

It can setup both:

- MBR. To Windows NT5/NT6 boot loader/manager, GRUB plus a few other
variants, and a few other lesser known boot loaders/managers.

- Partition/floppy boot sector. To MS-DOS bootstrap (for IO.SYS; FAT-x
only), FreeDOS bootstrap (for KERNEL.SYS; FAT-x only), Windows NTLDR
bootstraps (FAT-x/NTFS), Windows BOOTMGR bootstraps (FAT-x/NTFS/ExFAT), GRUB
boot manager (FAT-x/NTFS/ExFAT), SysLinux boot manager (FAT-x/NTFS).

It supports processing them within IMG/IMA/VHD/VHDX/VMDK disk images
directly (unmounted, of course).

It has BCD editor too. Lower level than EasyBCD but much more flexible.
Definitely not for novice.

Lastly, it has a disk wipe feature and a common text editor intended for
editing GRUB menu (but can be for any file).

The one in my PC was still v1.321 and I notice that the newer version has a
new UEFI tab. I haven't checked that.


Just partition your drive (use FAT-16 or FAT-32), make sure the partition is
bootable, use BOOTICE on the MBR and PBR, then copy the files into the
drive. Use FAT-16 if you're planning to install DOS that don't support
FAT-32. FAT-32 is (best) supported by Windows95/98 MS-DOS v7.x and FreeDOS.
Newer version of DR-DOS and a few other lesser known DOSes support FAT-32
too, but the stability might be questionable.

[liaoo]

Thanks for all your replies and I think I have to describe in more detail...

Our device is actually a ramdisk thus the capacity is the same as DDR size(2GB). And if enable ecc and e2e then the actual capacity will be smaller then 2GB

Besides our device has PCI expansion rom within it and this is the reason why I try to boot from it...

Current status is: In DOS our device is absent even I run DOS from a USB stick. But in Win7 our device is present and it can be formatted and used. Thus my question is to find some way(in Win7) to make it bootable to DOS(or EFI shell !?)

@JJ
"...make sure the partition is bootable" <- Could you guide me how to do this ?
"...use BOOTICE on the MBR and PBR" <- there are many options for MBR and PBR and I have no idea how to use this tool...

Thanks first...

[JJ]

On Tue, 15 Dec 2015 01:14:08 -0800 (PST), liaoo wrote:
>
> @JJ
> "...make sure the partition is bootable" <- Could you guide me how to do
> this ?

You can do this from Windows' Disk Management (i.e. mark partition as
active) or from BOOTICE (assuming that your storage device is detectable by
BOOTICE; may be shown as IFS rather than HD0, HD1, etc.).

In BOOTICE, it's similar. From the "Physical disk" tab, select the storage
device, then press the "Parts Manage" button to edit its partition table. A
partition is marked as bootable if it's active (shown on the "A" column with
an "A" in the cell) so that the MBR boot code knows which partition to load
the boot code from. Select the partition you want to mark as bootable/active
then press the "Activate" button. A bootable partition for MS-DOS OS must be
a primary partition formatted with FAT-12/16/32 (depending on which DOS
version).

> "...use BOOTICE on the MBR and PBR" <- there are many options for MBR and
> PBR and I have no idea how to use this tool...

To setup MS-DOS bootable partition...
First, perform a backup for each of below tasks before changing the MBR/PBR.

At "Physical disk" tab, select the storage device.

1. Press "Process MBR" to setup the MBR. In MBR dialog, choose "Windows NT
5.x / 6.x MBR" (i.e. standard MBR to boot from first active primary
partition; note: primary partition only), then press "Install / Config". In
the dialog choice, choose "Windows NT 6.x MBR" if you have a newer hardware,
otherwise choose "Windows NT 5.x MBR".

2. Press "Precess PBR" to setup the partition boot record. In PBR dialog,
choose the FAT-x partition, then choose "MS-DOS boot record (FAT/FAT32)",
then press the "Install / Config" button.

Just in case... (probably unlikely)
If the storage device is detected as IFS, the "Process MBR" button will not
be accessible because the storage device is designed and implemented as a
Windows Volume device. i.e. it doesn't have partition table. Like a floppy
disk with large capacity.