Sunday 27 September 2015

Add FreeDOS USB disk .img files to Easy2Boot

You can 'build' your own bootable FreeDos USB drive using RMPrepUSB, add any files you like, get it all working, and then use the MPI_FAT32 tool to make a .imgPTN file from USB stick.

However, some ready-made USB image files containing FreeDOS can be downloaded from here.

These are intended to be either PXE booted or directly written to a USB drive as an image using dd or some direct-write utility (e.g. RMPrepUSB - File>Drive). However, we can boot directly from them using the .mnu file below in Easy2Boot:



title FreeDOS-1.1-memstick-3-30M \n Boot from a FreeDos USB disk image
set IMAGE=$HOME$/FreeDOS-1.1-memstick-3-30M.img
errorcheck off
map (hd1) (hd2)
map (hd0) (hd1)
errorcheck on
map %IMAGE% (hd0) || map --mem %IMAGE% (hd0)
map --hook
root (hd0,0) || rootnoverify (hd0,0)
set KERNEL=
if exist /fdos/kernel.sys set KERNEL=/fdos/kernel.sys
if exist /kernel.sys set KERNEL=/kernel.sys
if "%KERNEL%"=="" pause ERROR: Cannot find KERNEL.SYS boot file!
echo FDISK DISK NUMBERS: && echo
echo DISK 1 = FREEDOS IMAGE FILE && geometry (hd0) && echo
echo DISK 2 = USB DRIVE && geometry (hd1) && echo
geometry (hd2) > nul && echo DISK 3 = FIRST INTERNAL HDD && geometry (hd2) && echo
echo
echo Info: Not all FreeDOS boot options may work.
echo
pause Press a key to continue...
chainloader %KERNEL%

You will need to extract the .img file from the bz2 download and copy it and the .mnu file to the \_ISO\DOS\MNU folder...




Because the internal hard disk is not Disk 1, this setup may not be suitable for installing FreeDos to a hard disk, however, you can use it to experiment with FreeDOS or to flash BIOSes, etc.

If your E2B USB drive is formatted as FAT32, then FreeDOS will be able to access files on the USB drive.

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