MSDOS 5.0 on USB

[kerravon]

I've got a new laptop which allows me to boot from USB. I used to
have a development
environment which was partitions on the hard disk (on my desktop).
But on my laptop
I was thinking I could do all this work on my USB stick, which is 256
MB.

My OS work is this:

http://pdos.sourceforge.net

Does the laptop hardware manage to make the USB emulate a hard disk?
If it does,
that's what I need.

However, when I booted DOS 5.0 from a CD (I don't have a floppy), it
didn't have any
C drive visible. Nor was the CDROM that I booted from visible.

What's the situation?

BFN. Paul.

[Alexei A. Frounze]

On Jan 5, 10:34 pm, kerravon <***@w3.to> wrote:
...

Post by kerravon
However, when I booted DOS 5.0 from a CD (I don't have a floppy), it
didn't have any
C drive visible. Nor was the CDROM that I booted from visible.
What's the situation?

Was there a virtual A: by any chance? AFAIR, the bootable CD may be
seen/emulated by the BIOS in at least 2 modes: floppy, hard disk. If
it's floppy, by default you won't see anything beyond the 1.44 MB boot
floppy image (or whatever is the actual floppy size). If it's bootable
HDD, then all that's in this HDD image should be visible. However, I
think, if there're several distinct images on the CD (the boot image
and the regular CD data), then you still need a CD driver to access
the rest. See the el torito spec for details.

Alex

[kerravon]

Post by Alexei A. Frounze
...

Post by kerravon
However, when I booted DOS 5.0 from a CD (I don't have a floppy), it
didn't have any
C drive visible.  Nor was the CDROM that I booted from visible.
What's the situation?

Was there a virtual A: by any chance?

Yes, it was an A drive.

Post by Alexei A. Frounze
AFAIR, the bootable CD may be
seen/emulated by the BIOS in at least 2 modes: floppy, hard disk.

I see. Ok, rather than pursue the CDROM, can you tell me about the
USB?
Because I can't write to the CDROM even if it is visible (hmmm, maybe
I can
write to a CD-RW with an appropriate driver?).

Does the USB operate the same way, as either a floppy or a hard disk?

I'm using a Toshiba Satellite A200 BTW.

BFN. Paul.

[Alexei A. Frounze]

Post by kerravon

Post by Alexei A. Frounze
...

Post by kerravon
However, when I booted DOS 5.0 from a CD (I don't have a floppy), it
didn't have any
C drive visible. Nor was the CDROM that I booted from visible.
What's the situation?

Was there a virtual A: by any chance?

Yes, it was an A drive.

Post by Alexei A. Frounze
AFAIR, the bootable CD may be
seen/emulated by the BIOS in at least 2 modes: floppy, hard disk.

I see. Ok, rather than pursue the CDROM, can you tell me about the
USB?
Because I can't write to the CDROM even if it is visible (hmmm, maybe
I can
write to a CD-RW with an appropriate driver?).

Sure, why not?

Post by kerravon
Does the USB operate the same way, as either a floppy or a hard disk?

I don't know yet. Btw, there exist external USB floppy drives, for
about $30. If you're trying to solve the problem of transferring your
OS from the dev box to the test box, there're other ways. I
implemented serial boot. I don't know if both of your computers have a
serial port, but if they do, that's an option too, although not a very
fast one (11520 bytes/second max), but there're no moving parts
involved (almost), so if you prefer sitting back and waiting instead
of manually carrying around the media and waiting, that's a good thing
too.

Post by kerravon
I'm using a Toshiba Satellite A200 BTW.

Never had Toshibas.

Alex

[s***@yahoo.com]

Post by kerravon

Post by Alexei A. Frounze
...

Post by kerravon
However, when I booted DOS 5.0 from a CD (I don't have a floppy), it
didn't have any
C drive visible.  Nor was the CDROM that I booted from visible.
What's the situation?

Was there a virtual A: by any chance?

Yes, it was an A drive.

Post by Alexei A. Frounze
AFAIR, the bootable CD may be
seen/emulated by the BIOS in at least 2 modes: floppy, hard disk.

I see.  Ok, rather than pursue the CDROM, can you tell me about the
USB?
Because I can't write to the CDROM even if it is visible (hmmm, maybe
I can
write to a CD-RW with an appropriate driver?).
Does the USB operate the same way, as either a floppy or a hard disk?
I'm using a Toshiba Satellite A200 BTW.
BFN.  Paul.

The so called hot swapable devices are controled thru the PnP, Plug
and Play Bios extentions. USB sticks usually come formatted, but can
be reformatted.
Start here: http://www.imation.com/support/products/flash_devices.html#21
Seems to me if you use an OS, like XP, to make a bootable Fat
partition for your pcdos, then powerup the laptop with the usb stick
in place, the Bios will find the device and boot from it. You may
have to F1 or F12 or whatever, to enter 'setup mode' to configure your
bios to boot from usb, however. You say already your laptop supports
usb boot, but it may not be enabled by default. The Extended Fixed
Disk Services of Int 13h (or Enhanced Disk Drive EDD Services) govern
Bootable CD-Rom, according to the Phoenix Bios, likely USB Drives as
well. Meaning you may find support in the Bios and need not do low
level driver coding, _hopefully_. Rummage around the Phoenix website
to find the technical references for some of these things, also RBIL
has abit on the EDD service extentions.

HTH.

Steve

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

Post by kerravon
Because I can't write to the CDROM even if it is visible (hmmm, maybe
I can
write to a CD-RW with an appropriate driver?).

Sectorwise writes to MMC media are possible on BD-RE, DVD-RAM and DVD+RW only.

Blockwise writes (block == 64KB) are possible with the above media, and also
with DVD-RW formatted to Restricted Overwrite mode, with CD-RW formatted to
Mount Rainer mode, and with CD-RW using packet writes.

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

Post by Alexei A. Frounze
think, if there're several distinct images on the CD (the boot image
and the regular CD data), then you still need a CD driver to access
the rest. See the el torito spec for details.

In "No Emulation" mode of El Torito, this is not true, and the CD boot code can
access the whole CD using extended int 13h.

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

Post by kerravon
Does the laptop hardware manage to make the USB emulate a hard disk?

Usually it is BIOS emulation (int 13h) only.

So, for your OS to access USB mass storage, you need to have USB stack in your
OS.

[kerravon]

Post by Maxim S. Shatskih

Post by kerravon
Does the laptop hardware manage to make the USB emulate a hard disk?

Usually it is BIOS emulation (int 13h) only.

What do you mean by this? BIOS is exactly what I'm after. My
operating system
calls the BIOS to do its work.

Post by Maxim S. Shatskih
So, for your OS to access USB mass storage, you need to have USB stack in your
OS.

The Toshiba gives me a boot menu if I press F12, and I can choose to
boot from the
USB. If it emulates a hard disk, then I can boot my OS.

Although I still need to find a way to get my OS onto the USB in the
first place, given
that the DOS 5.0 "sys" command, which is what I used to use, is not
available under
Window Vista.

But first things first. I still don't understand what my computer
turns the USB into.
If it's a hard disk that I can partition with DOS 5.0's fdisk, then
I'm in business.

BFN. Paul.

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

Post by kerravon
What do you mean by this? BIOS is exactly what I'm after. My
operating system
calls the BIOS to do its work.

Then it should be OK to, at least if you have booted from the USB storage.

Post by kerravon
But first things first. I still don't understand what my computer
turns the USB into.
If it's a hard disk that I can partition with DOS 5.0's fdisk, then
I'm in business.

Depends on BIOS, but the chances are high.

[Wolfgang Kern]

Post by Maxim S. Shatskih

Post by kerravon
What do you mean by this? BIOS is exactly what I'm after. My
operating system
calls the BIOS to do its work.

Then it should be OK to, at least if you have booted from the USB storage.

Post by kerravon
But first things first. I still don't understand what my computer
turns the USB into.
If it's a hard disk that I can partition with DOS 5.0's fdisk, then
I'm in business.

Depends on BIOS, but the chances are high.

yeah, the problem with USB and DOS(5..6) is that the BIOS may support
INT13 for Boot only, but DOS itself wont be able to handle nor access it.
The seen oldDOS 'USB-drivers' are all heavy bloated and need EMM+XMS
installed, so its usage for DOS environments is somehow restriced then
(I exerienced only <450KB free in low RAM with DOS 6.00).
But I haven't seen FDISK working on external/removable drives anyway.
__
wolfgang

[kerravon]

Post by Maxim S. Shatskih

What do you mean by this?  BIOS is exactly what I'm after.  My
operating system
calls the BIOS to do its work.

Then it should be OK to, at least if you have booted from the USB storage.

But first things first.  I still don't understand what my computer
turns the USB into.
If it's a hard disk that I can partition with DOS 5.0's fdisk, then
I'm in business.

Depends on BIOS, but the chances are high.

Ok, so assuming my USB has been turned into a hard disk, how do I get
DOS 5 onto
my USB stick? Unfortunately when I boot DOS 5 from CDROM, it doesn't
turn the
USB stick into a C drive so that I can format it from my floppy. Is
that normal?

BFN. Paul.

[Maxim S. Shatskih]

Post by kerravon
my USB stick? Unfortunately when I boot DOS 5 from CDROM, it doesn't
turn the
USB stick into a C drive so that I can format it from my floppy. Is
that normal?

Yes.

int 13h over USB is probably only implemented if USB was used as a boot device

[kerravon]

Post by Maxim S. Shatskih

my USB stick?  Unfortunately when I boot DOS 5 from CDROM, it doesn't
turn the
USB stick into a C drive so that I can format it from my floppy.  Is
that normal?

Yes.
int 13h over USB is probably only implemented if USB was used as a boot device

It's pretty sad that they have that functionality in there, but it's
deactivated for some
reason.

On my desktop, when I used to reboot with my IPOD plugged in, it used
to fail to
start Windows, which was on my F drive, because the IPOD had created a
drive
letter. Presumably that machine would have been able to do what I
want? Pity I
didn't use it to format my USB stick when I had the chance, and get
DOS 5 on it.

Maybe I can try another PC and see if that gets a drive letter.
Although it needs to
get that drive letter while booting DOS 5 from CDROM.

I could potentially get Windows Vista to make room on my hard disk for
me to boot
DOS 5, but it's an 80 gig hard disk, and I suspect it will make room
down the end
and be outside the 8 gig (from memory) range that is required to boot
DOS 5.

BFN. Paul.

[Mike Gonta]

Post by kerravon
Ok, so assuming my USB has been turned into a hard disk, how do I get
DOS 5 onto my USB stick?

Download the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool",
search for "SP27608.exe".
This will format the USB flash drive and has an option to create a DOS
startup disk (bootable USB flash drive) using your DOS 5.0 system
files.


Mike Gonta

look and see - many look but few see

http://mikegonta.com/aeBIOS

[kerravon]

Post by Mike Gonta

Post by kerravon
Ok, so assuming my USB has been turned into a hard disk, how do I get
DOS 5 onto my USB stick?

Download the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool",
search for "SP27608.exe".
This will format the USB flash drive and has an option to create a DOS
startup disk (bootable USB flash drive) using your DOS 5.0 system
files.

Sounds good. Does it allow partitioning of the USB drive? Because
otherwise I
can't get my OS in as well as my DOS 5 development system.

Also, I couldn't find the product from the HP site. Is there any
reason for that?
I found an HP document that gave a pointer to somewhere on the HP
site, but
that link no longer worked. And the executable above was missing from
their
FTP site (I could see numbers around that though!).

BFN. Paul.

[Rod Pemberton]

Post by kerravon

Post by Maxim S. Shatskih

Post by kerravon
Does the laptop hardware manage to make the USB emulate a hard disk?

Usually it is BIOS emulation (int 13h) only.

What do you mean by this? BIOS is exactly what I'm after. My
operating system calls the BIOS to do its work.

BTW, how is your OS coming along?


Rod Pemberton

[kerravon]

Post by Rod Pemberton
BTW, how is your OS coming along?
Rod Pemberton

I'm not working on PDOS these days. I'm working on a different
operating system:

http://mvs380.sourceforge.net

However, I am still working on PDPCLIB, as are others, as GCCMVS is
improved
on the MVS environment (using PDPCLIB - there's no other choice
available).

The PDPCLIB changes are usually fixes that apply to all environments,
including
PDOS.

BFN. Paul.