Creating MS-DOS bootdisk in VL

[hemuli]

Hello again

Can anybody tell me how to create MS-DOS 6.** bootdisk in Linux? I think I saw somwhere some imagewrite program for linux... is it in VL too?
There are many bootdisk-sites but they seem to have windoes self extracting boot disks. Where can I find ones that are suitable for linux imagewriter?

Bootdisk is for Toshiba T5100 (80386 16MHz/2Mb RAM/40 Mb HD), suggestions for one-floppy-linuxes that can run with this setup are also welcome

[hemuli]

I founded this: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Create_a_DOS_boot_disk and tried it out, but FreeDOS doesn't seem to run with 2 megs of RAM.

I can't find MS-DOS bootdisk image in .gz-format with google

Does anyone know where to find them or do you know how to make one from the (win-) self-extracting archive?

My newer computer with XP has some problem with motherboard so it can't have floppydrive in it, but the other machine wich runs vector has a fully functional floppydrive. I really don't want to put a windos in it...

Thanks

[Joe1962]

Maybe FreeDOS would work for you?: http://www.freedos.org/

[retired1af]

I founded this: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Create_a_DOS_boot_disk and tried it out, but FreeDOS doesn't seem to run with 2 megs of RAM.

DOS 6 isn't going to see that 2 MB of RAM, it's only going to see the first 640K. Does that XP machine have a CD drive? If so, take your XP installation CD and boot to recover mode. This should allow you access to the hard drive to do any repairs you may need to do.

[Joe1962]

FreeDOS doesn't seem to run with 2 megs of RAM.

oops... . I should read more fully before replying in a hurry.

Does that XP machine have a CD drive? If so, take your XP installation CD and boot to recover mode. This should allow you access to the hard drive to do any repairs you may need to do.

Or get the System Recue CD. It all depends on what you really need/want to do.
http://www.sysresccd.org

[hemuli]

Thank you for your replies.

I tried FreeDOS, doesn't start.

I founded MS-DOS 6.22 bootdisk from: http://oldfiles.org.uk/powerload/bootdisk.htm
Booted it, fdisked and formatted drive, now it has operating system on it and it works!


BTW you can get more than 640 kilos of memory in MS-DOS with HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE (XMS or EMS, not conventional).



Off topic: I bought this "laptop" today from the local fleemarket. Previous owner had used doublespace to double 40 meg HD to 150 megs!!! When I scandisked it there was over 100 bad sectors... didn't finish that scan, but after formatting it back to 40 it had none of the bad sectors. Tell me, is this one of the worst DOS misuses ever or what?

EDIT: T5100 doesn't have CD-drive... yet...

[retired1af]

Not really. Back in those days, hard drive prices weren't exactly affordable. Doublespace was a cheap way of getting more bang for your buck. IBM PCs back then were averaging 7-8,000 bucks a pop with a 120 Meg drive.