[Freedos-user] FreeDOS 1.0 Final Installation hangs when booting off of USB key

[jdb2]

Hello. I recently setup SYSLINUX on an el-cheapo 1GB Sandisk "Ativa" USB key
to boot the FreeDOS fdboot.img floppy image using MEMDISK which in turn
boots the fdfullcd.iso ( renamed to fdbootcd.iso ) image on the same USB
key. All the "LiveCD" modes work flawlessly, but, when I select the option
to install to my "hard disk" the FreeDOS installer hangs with the following
text at the top of the screen with the rest of the screen blank :

"
FreeDOS HIMEM64 3.26 [Aug 25 2006] (c) 1995, Till Gerken 2001-2006 tom
ehlert
HIMEM - Fast A20 method used
Kernel: allocated 43 Diskbuffers = 22876 Bytes in HMA
_" ( blinking cursor )

I've checked that FreeDOS is identifying the USB key as the C: drive and
everything looks OK.

Might anyone know what could cause the above behavior?

Thanks,

jdb2

[jdb2]

Hello. I recently setup SYSLINUX on an el-cheapo 1GB Sandisk "Ativa" USB key
to boot the FreeDOS fdboot.img floppy image using MEMDISK which in turn
boots the fdfullcd.iso ( renamed to fdbootcd.iso ) image on the same USB
key. All the "LiveCD" modes work flawlessly, but, when I select the option
to install to my "hard disk" the FreeDOS installer hangs with the following
text at the top of the screen with the rest of the screen blank :

"
FreeDOS HIMEM64 3.26 [Aug 25 2006] (c) 1995, Till Gerken 2001-2006 tom
ehlert
HIMEM - Fast A20 method used
Kernel: allocated 43 Diskbuffers = 22876 Bytes in HMA
_" ( blinking cursor )

I've checked that FreeDOS is identifying the USB key as the C: drive and
everything looks OK.

Might anyone know what could cause the above behavior?

Thanks,

jdb2

[Eric Auer]

Hi JDB2,

Post by jdb2
Hello. I recently setup SYSLINUX on an el-cheapo 1GB Sandisk "Ativa" USB key
to boot the FreeDOS fdboot.img floppy image using MEMDISK which in turn
boots the fdfullcd.iso ( renamed to fdbootcd.iso ) image on the same USB
key. All the "LiveCD" modes work flawlessly, but, when I select the option
to install to my "hard disk" the FreeDOS installer hangs with the following
"
FreeDOS HIMEM64 3.26 [Aug 25 2006] (c) 1995, Till Gerken 2001-2006 tom
ehlert
HIMEM - Fast A20 method used
Kernel: allocated 43 Diskbuffers = 22876 Bytes in HMA
_" ( blinking cursor )
I've checked that FreeDOS is identifying the USB key as the C: drive and
everything looks OK.

Could be a problem with this old version of HIMEM, try HIMEMX from
www.japheth.de or try the "almost 1.1" diskette distro on
rugxulo.googlepages.com - you can also put that one on CD / DVD
by using the floppy image as boot image. In K3B that would be: Open
a data CD/DVD project, select Project - Edit Boot Images and then
select the 1.44 MB image of the first or second diskette of the
Ruffidea distro, or try the 2.88 MB image with contents of the two
first diskettes combined, along with a simpler boot menu as well.

Eric ;-)

PS: It could also be possible that MEMDISK interacts with this
HIMEM or your BIOS in some incompatible way, hard to tell. Does
the ACPI part of recent versions of FDAPM work okay, eg ACPIDUMP?

[jdb2]

Post by Eric Auer
Hi JDB2,

Post by Eric Auer
Hi JDB2,

Post by jdb2
Hello. I recently setup SYSLINUX on an el-cheapo 1GB Sandisk "Ativa" USB key
to boot the FreeDOS fdboot.img floppy image using MEMDISK which in turn
boots the fdfullcd.iso ( renamed to fdbootcd.iso ) image on the same USB
key. All the "LiveCD" modes work flawlessly, but, when I select the option
to install to my "hard disk" the FreeDOS installer hangs with the following
"
FreeDOS HIMEM64 3.26 [Aug 25 2006] (c) 1995, Till Gerken 2001-2006 tom
ehlert
HIMEM - Fast A20 method used
Kernel: allocated 43 Diskbuffers = 22876 Bytes in HMA
_" ( blinking cursor )
I've checked that FreeDOS is identifying the USB key as the C: drive and
everything looks OK.

Could be a problem with this old version of HIMEM, try HIMEMX from
www.japheth.de or try the "almost 1.1" diskette distro on
rugxulo.googlepages.com

I figured as much.

Post by Eric Auer
- you can also put that one on CD / DVD
by using the floppy image as boot image. In K3B that would be: Open
a data CD/DVD project, select Project - Edit Boot Images and then
select the 1.44 MB image of the first or second diskette of the
Ruffidea distro, or try the 2.88 MB image with contents of the two
first diskettes combined, along with a simpler boot menu as well.

Well, the whole point of my using SYSLINUX was to make the FreeDOS
installation
as easy as possible ie. no burning of CD's or use of floppies especially
when the whole
point is to do away with the vestigial floppy drive, especially with
systems that don't
have one. :)
( By the way, I have almost been able to install FreeDOS on the USB key
via DOSEMU
( most recent version compiled from the source ) in Linux ( Kubuntu 8.04 )
but at some
point during the end of the installation process FreeDOS always crashes
with, if I remember
correctly, an invalid opcode exception. )

Post by Eric Auer
Eric ;-)
PS: It could also be possible that MEMDISK interacts with this
HIMEM or your BIOS in some incompatible way, hard to tell. Does
the ACPI part of recent versions of FDAPM work okay, eg ACPIDUMP?

You are right on the money. :) I supplied the "raw" command line option to
MEMDISK to force it to use direct access to protected mode high memory
whenever possible. This did the trick. :) I now have a fully bootable
FreeDOS
install on the USB key. Now if only I could get it to detect my ethernet
chipset
as I use a " Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8001 Gigabit Ethernet
Controller (rev 13) " .
Thanks for your help! :)
Regards,
jdb2

Post by Eric Auer
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[Eric Auer]

Hi!

Post by Eric Auer

Post by Eric Auer

Hello. I recently setup SYSLINUX on an el-cheapo 1GB Sandisk USB
to boot the FreeDOS fdboot.img floppy image using MEMDISK which in turn
boots the fdfullcd.iso ( renamed to fdbootcd.iso ) image on the same USB
key...

Interesting method. You can indeed put fdbootcd.iso in the root
directory of a drive and then boot the fdboot.img helper floppy.

Post by Eric Auer

Post by Eric Auer
Could be a problem with this old version of HIMEM, try HIMEMX from
www.japheth.de or try the "almost 1.1" diskette distro on
rugxulo.googlepages.com ...
by using the floppy image as boot image. In K3B that would be: Open
a data CD/DVD project, select Project - Edit Boot Images ...

Well, the whole point of my using SYSLINUX was to make the FreeDOS
installation as easy as possible ie. no burning of CD's or use of
floppies... almost been able to install FreeDOS on the USB key
via DOSEMU ...

You can use various methods for installing DOS on USB: sys-freedos-linux
(sys-freedos.pl) adds a boot sector and allows you to tune settings. You
simply copy the files with cp or a file manager, sys-freedos is minimal.
You may also have to mark the partition on the stick as active/bootable.

The makebootfat tool, on the other hand, can even re-partition the and
re-format the stick, to have full control of the contents. This can be
better in certain cases. I myself prefer using the formatting and the
partitioning which was on a stick when I bought it, but tastes differ.

With syslinux, you can probably boot freedos directly from the stick if
you have a suitable boot sector. With grub4dos, you do not even need a
boot sector, it can load the kernel directly from the stick. As usual,
you copy the other files with a file manager or cp.

For Windows, there is also some "HP tool" to make sticks bootable. This
explicitly supports installing freedos on sticks. Never tried that one.



In all cases, you can just copy the files from one of the Rugxulo
1.44 MB diskettes or maybe better from the single combined 2.88 MB
diskette to your stick in combination with any of the abovementioned
methods to make the kernel start directly from the stick :-). That
gives you a complete installed FreeDOS. If you want additional apps,
unzip the zip files from the older but larger FreeDOS 1.0 fdfullcd
into a directory: You get lots of apps in various subdirectories,
but only have to add the BIN subdirectory to your PATH variable :-).
You should add BIN after the newer Rugxulo dirs to "prefer new".

Post by Eric Auer

Post by Eric Auer
PS: It could also be possible that MEMDISK interacts with this
HIMEM or your BIOS in some incompatible way, hard to tell. Does
the ACPI part of recent versions of FDAPM work okay, eg ACPIDUMP?

You are right on the money. :) I supplied the "raw" command line option to
MEMDISK to force it to use direct access to protected mode high memory
whenever possible. This did the trick. :) I now have a fully bootable
FreeDOS install on the USB key.

Very interesting. I hope HIMEMX and JEMM386 also give you the choice
between int 15.87 and raw? Probably both use raw at the moment but it
might be good to have two methods to try in HIMEMX :-).

Post by Eric Auer
Now if only I could get it to detect my ethernet chipset
as I use a " Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8001 Gigabit
Ethernet Controller (rev 13) " .

Try the webpage of the Sioux DOS webserver, there was a collection
of DOS network drivers there. Also see the other "DOS internet" on
www.freedos.org/freedos/links/ :-)

Eric