What retro things have you done today?

[Retro6]

Nope turns out that isn't the reason. I got all 41 files copied to the system disk but no boot.

I really don't know anymore. I doubt Winimage will do anything either. DOS disk's can not be copied in 2024 and its a mystery. I will probably never figure out why. I know people did make and use back up copies of DOS simply by using DISKCOPY... in the early days. I know the images can't be bad because I can't even make backups of my own original DOS disks, the exact same thing happens with the copied disks they do not boot. They are the only set I have so once they have gone I dunno what I will do and I'm not going to pay rip off ebay prices for another set. Its very frustrating and could potentially end my interest in DOS gaming and 486 PC's all together because without working DOS disks they will become useless.

 

[Retro6]

Maybe Windows might be doing something strange with the DOS files...

I will have to dig out another PC with a floppy drive and install a Linux OS and try and create a DOS system disk in Linux. I'll leave it until the weekend as I have other things to do this week.

 

[andshrew]

Maybe Windows might be doing something strange with the DOS files...

I will have to dig out another PC with a floppy drive and install a Linux OS and try and create a DOS system disk in Linux. I'll leave it until the weekend as I have other things to do this week.

There is more to how a floppy disk boots than just the files that are in the filesystem:

What makes a floppy disk bootable?

A lot of web sites describe how to create a bootable floppy disk using an existing image (via dd). But what about the image makes it bootable? I'm interested in making my own bootable floppy image...

retrocomputing.stackexchange.com

You need to write the FreeDOS image to the floppy disk using an image writer like WinImage. It should just be a case of selecting the first FreeDOS disk image, selecting your floppy disk drive and then selecting write.

 

[Retro6]

I managed to make working copies of my original DOS disks so I can relax now about the worry over only having one set...

I tried DISKCOPY on my Windows 98 machine and they worked... before I was using my 486 to attempt to make back ups but when they copied they never copied correctly with the floppy disks showing as nothing on them.

Anyway I'm happy I've got some back up disks now so I can put my originals away safe somewhere.

Next I need to figure out if its possible to make a set of FreeDOS floppy disks... from reading up on forums it can be very problematic from what I've read.

 

[Armageus]

Next I need to figure out if its possible to make a set of FreeDOS floppy disks... from reading up on forums it can be very problematic from what I've read.

Shouldn't be any more involved than using winimage to write the image... That's what used to be used back in the day
(Aside from using the copy system files tick box when formatting under Win98se)

 

[Retro6]

I've setup 9 CF cards with DOS installed to them. You can make pretty much any CF Card bootable for DOS just by running the FDISK /MBR command if they fail to boot after a DOS install. CF cards and DOS work very well together considering there really aren't many READ/WRITES happening, half the time the CF card will sit idol in DOS unlike in Windows when your CF card gets thrashed. I always say use a mechanical HDD when ever possible for Windows but in DOS CF Cards are no problem.

I've collected up a lot of CF Cards over the past few years to use on 486 systems and on my Canon 400D camera.

I have a 16MB CF Card this has MS-DOS 6 installed and will be used for testing machines.
512MB CF Cards get MS-DOS 6.22
1GB CF Cards get MS-DOS 6.22
2GB CF cards get MS-DOS 6.22
4GB CF Cards get FreeDOS or DOS 7.1 as well as anything over.

I'd say DOS 7.1 still needs a bit of work as its missing a lot of vital tools but its fantastic if its upgraded from MS-DOS 6.22 as it still keeps the needed tools from MS-DOS 6.22 so you'll get DOS 7.1 with the tools you need and you can install Phils DOS Start Pack on top.

 

[Retro6]

Shouldn't be any more involved than using winimage to write the image... That's what used to be used back in the day
(Aside from using the copy system files tick box when formatting under Win98se)

I wouldn't have thought it would have to involve such programs to write floppy images. I will give Winimage a shot anyhow or way... I have read that even if I succeed with FreeDOS 1.3 floppy version and manage to boot it I'm still not out of the woods as there are many more well known issues with FreeDOS on Floppy, I might be better off trying an older version of FreeDOS for floppy... but I'll see. Who knows maybe I will succeed with it.

I would be interested to know if anybody else has had success with making fully working bootable FreeDOS Floppy disks?

 

[Armageus]

I wouldn't have thought it would have to involve such programs to write floppy images.

How else are you getting the FD13-Floppy edition .img files onto a disk? If you are extracting them, then you aren't going to write the correct boot sector etc.

If you don't want to use winimage, then this should do the job:

chrysocome.net - RawWrite for Windows

 

[Retro6]

I can't figure out Rawwrite because for example DISK 1 contains many files and Rawwrite wont let me select them to write them to floppy. I'll have to find a youtube tutorial because I don't have a clue on how to use Win image or Raw write.

Unless each of the files have to be in RAW file format?

 

[Armageus]

I have no idea what you are doing then???



1) Should be a case of downloading the "For Classic Hardware" Floppy Edition from the lower right corner link @ https://www.freedos.org/download/
2) Unzip FD13-FloppyEdition.zip to your desktop or somewhere else
3) Using RawWrite browse to where you unzipped it, and then pick the .img files from the 144m folder
4) Repeat for the other 5 image files

(I have no floppy drive available to me, otherwise I'd give it a try myself)

 

[Retro6]

I have no idea what you are doing then???



1) Should be a case of downloading the "For Classic Hardware" Floppy Edition from the lower right corner link @ https://www.freedos.org/download/
2) Unzip FD13-FloppyEdition.zip to your desktop or somewhere else
3) Using RawWrite browse to where you unzipped it, and then pick the .img files from the 144m folder
4) Repeat for the other 5 image files

(I have no floppy drive available to me, otherwise I'd give it a try myself)

Ahh got ya... I was doing it wrong. I think I understand it now.

 

[Retro6]

Nope I'm totally baffled. It wont open image files, either that or I've messed up something up in Windows 98 registry somehow... I'll try on another PC

 

[cee-S-dee]

You don't open anything? In the image file box in the RawWrite image posted by Armageus, you click the ellipsis box, select the first image and click write.

Thats it.

 

[Retro6]

Yep I messed something up in Windows 98 from messing about transfering dos files to and from...

I've tried it on another PC and RawWrite is working now as it should.

Edit: Its all working... I have FreeDOS on Floppy and installing it to a CF Card at this moment.

 

[phatboy]

Quite a result today, checked FB marketplace and saw the guy I got my P182 case from had posted up an advert trying to find me as he lost my details and had found all the drive rails and other accessories for the case and also an extra modular cable for the PSU.

Went and picked them up on lunch and had a chat about retro pc hardware for a bit at which point he goes "hang on" disappears into other room and comes back with a box and says enjoy! And hands over an MSI 970a KRAIT mainboard with FX8320E installed + 16gb DDR3 and 2 Hauppage WinTV PCI cards



Not a bad lunch break

 

[Retro6]

I've been playing about with more CF Cards in MS DOS 6.22 and I have a 4GB CF Card but I will only be able to use 2047MB of that in MS DOS 6.22 so I thought I would have a closer look at FDISK I can create an extended partition and set the partition size but there is no letter assigned to that partition and its displayed as unknown so I took a look at option 3 in create a DOS drive but it doesn't change anything. I'm a bit lost on what to do... it boggles my mind how people managed it back in the day with no internet or youtube to look things up.

I am slowly learning DOS and having fun with it. I know DOS isn't every bodies cup of tea, and most just use it for retro gaming but I want to dig deeper in to the disk operating system.

I want to create an ultimate DOS 6.22 install with mouse driver and unisound. Optical driver I don't really need because my 486 computers don't have them. My main 486 PC I'd like to leave it looking original, I feel that adding a CD Drive would spoil the look of it and my mini 486 has no space to mount one but the good thing about CF Cards is that, you can just swap them in and out to dump files on to them so it pretty much renders CD ROM Drives as not really an essential thing to have on a 486. Many DOS games and apps came on floppy. I do have an original CD ROM Device Driver on floppy if I ever need it.

I think a CD driver shouldn't be automatic in an ultimate DOS install but having the mouse driver is important and also Unisound. I would like to see some DOS boot menus that people make... I would like to see a DOS menu that displays all your drives, so for example if you have a larger CF card but with separate partitions, you'll see them displayed in the DOS start up menu.

 

[!bluetonic!]

This weekend, I replaced the coin battery in my Win2K machine.

I opened and cleaned the floppy disk drive, but it still doesn't read disks, so I think it's broken.

I installed the parallel port Iomega Zip Drive 100MB too. I had two units. One unit was rattling. On inspection, there was a plastic clip that had fallen out of place. I opened up the unit, and its innards collapsed on me. I've no skills to piece it back together, so bye bye zip drive.

 

[Retro6]

This weekend, I replaced the coin battery in my Win2K machine.

I opened and cleaned the floppy disk drive, but it still doesn't read disks, so I think it's broken.

I installed the parallel port Iomega Zip Drive 100MB too. I had two units. One unit was rattling. On inspection, there was a plastic clip that had fallen out of place. I opened up the unit, and its innards collapsed on me. I've no skills to piece it back together, so bye bye zip drive.

If your floppy disk drive isn't working after a clean, there is still one last thing to try... you will need a bottle of IPA.

Fill your bath tub of water and submerge the floppy drive in the water and give it some rigorous swooshes.... once done give it a dry off and submerge it in a tub of IPA then leave it to dry.

I've done this with dead floppy drives and they have always worked fine afterwards.

 

[Retro6]

I found some 320kb 3.5" floppy disks but some were not formatted, I managed to format them to 720kb in Windows 95. I did see if I could format them to 1.44MB just out of curiosity but it was a no go. Its interesting how they formatted to 720kb considering there 320kb floppy disks.

 

[Bubo]

You won't have been able to format them as 1.44mb as they probably don't have the extra notch in the back side, opposite corner to where the write protect notch is. Without that the drive will physically detect it as a non HD disk and stop you right there.