Other IBM PC-DOS 2000 on USB

B

balanga

According to ChatGPT, the most reliable method (Works 99%) of getting PC-DOS 2000 iso installed on a USB stick is by using Rufus...

So I dug out an old Windows disk, I'd forgotten how horrendous Windows is, and eventually managed to find a version of Rufus which worked with my version of Windows, ie 3.22. But after all that effort, Rufus complains that the image is unsuppotted, it's either non-bootable or uses a boot or compression method that is not supported by Rufus.

So much for ChatGPT!

Does anyone know a 100% reliable way, preferable using FreeBSD to create a USB bootable PC-DOS 2000?

PC DOS 2000 is available here:-

winworldpc.com

PC-DOS 2000

IBM PC-DOS was an IBM branded version of MS-DOS licensed from Microsoft for use on the IBM PC system. Versions of PC-DOS paralleled that of MS-DOS up until version 6.1, where PC-DOS was independently maintained by IBM up until 7.1, the last version. Although not the only OS available for the IBM...
winworldpc.com
 
I was able to burn the above ISO image to a USB using the below command, but none of the computers I have on hand would boot from it. But on the other hand, none of the old DOS boot disks I have hanging around will work on any of my machines anyway, so maybe it is just my hardware.

Code: 
dd if=/home/Simon/Downloads/temp/PC-DOS_2000.iso of=/dev/da0 bs=1M
 
Tried all of the below steps, and it still didn't work, so you got me.

Code: 
gpart destroy -F /dev/da0

gpart create -s mbr /dev/da0

root@Asus:/ # gpart add -t fat16 /dev/da0

root@Asus:/ # dd if=/home/Simon/Downloads/temp/PC-DOS_2000.iso of=/dev/da0 bs=1M
 
Cedric62 said:
Tried all of the below steps, and it still didn't work, so you got me.

Code: 
gpart destroy -F /dev/da0

gpart create -s mbr /dev/da0

root@Asus:/ # gpart add -t fat16 /dev/da0

root@Asus:/ # dd if=/home/Simon/Downloads/temp/PC-DOS_2000.iso of=/dev/da0 bs=1M
Click to expand...
the last of these steps destroys all of the work of the previous three steps: you overwrite the partition table that you just created with the raw image.

if the image isn't set up to be USB-bootable, you have to put in the effort to understand how BIOS booting works. chatgpt will not help you, this requires research and understanding.
 
The CD is not bootable.
$ file PC-DOS_2000.iso
PC-DOS_2000.iso: ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem data 'PCDOS2000'


If it were bootable, it would say (bootable) at the end.

You can install another DOS to the system, get CD drivers if necessary, and run setup.exe from the CD to install PC DOS 2000.
 
Yes, research and understanding, and a bit of grey beard to be alive and using DOS 40-45 years ago.
For that 512 byte first sector to be bootable, the last 2 bytes should have the hex value 55h AAh. Find a bootable DOS disk and use 'dd' to copy the first 512 byte sector into a file testfile.bin and dump that file with command od -x testfile.bin to get an hex byte dump.
man od for option details to specify the print format you wish. Others can verify more details about what makes BIOS recognize a bootable disk.

What Makes a floppy disk bootable
In some BIOSs, there may be a check that the last two bytes of the sector are 55h AAh (my tests on compatible machines show that this isn't necessarily true there, but I suspect IBM BIOSs do perform this test based on documents I've read about it), and the BIOS will ignore the disk if this signature isn't present.

FAT12 , FAT16, or FAT32 disk partition table format. 0x55 0xAA in the first sector, for the win! or Windows
RUFUS for Windows is a good tool to write binary image files into a USB flash disk drive stick.
RUFUS Windows tool to write/burn binary image files into a USB Flash Disk Drive Stick
Balena Etcher USB writer tool for Linux and MacOS

Balena Etcher is simpler and cross-platform (Win/Mac/Linux) but slower and riskier (can pick system drive). Rufus is Windows-only, faster, more powerful with advanced options (UEFI/BIOS, image tweaks) but has a steeper learning curve and some privacy concerns, though it's generally preferred for Windows users needing control. Choose Etcher for simplicity, Rufus for advanced Windows tasks or speed.
SUSE USB ImageWriter tool
SUSE USB ImageWriter tool
2010 description to create a DOS bootable disk or USB.
 
Cedric62 said:
But it appears that the last of my steps would write the iso file to the USB....?
Click to expand...
yes, it does so by overwriting the partitions you just created — you are writing to da0, which replaces the partitioning. the three previous commands that create the partition are thus voided.

Also, ISO 9660 images do not boot better when they're placed on partitions claiming to be DOS filesystems.

chatgpt will not help you.
 
the tack you ought to be taking here is to find the boot floppy image. OSes that install from CD but do not boot from CD come with a boot floppy that has the CD drivers that was intended to be imaged onto a floppy and booted. IIRC you need to have MEMDISK boot the floppy but also load the ISO. Either that, or rebuild the ISO to be bootable by embedding the floppy image eltorito style.
 
wb7odyfred said:
2010 description to create a DOS bootable disk or USB.
Click to expand...


I read the link with much interest but couldn't understand these instructions:-

Setup system files root directory entries:
# cd /mnt && touch IO.SYS MSDOS.SYS COMMAND.COM
The order of the files above and their uppercase names is crucial.

Copy valid system files to your file system:
# cp io.sys msdos.sys command.com /mnt/
Click to expand...


My reading is that you create three empty files with names in uppercse because this is crucial and then you proceed to overwrite with names in lower case!

I'm missing something here.
 
DOS is case insensitive, but requires those three files to be the first ones transferred to the disk because it expects them in that order as the first three directory entries (because the bootloader can't chase down other entries).
 
atax1a said:
DOS is case insensitive, but requires those three files to be the first ones transferred to the disk because it expects them in that order as the first three directory entries (because the bootloader can't chase down other entries).
Click to expand...
Explain what this will do:-

cp io.sys msdos.sys command.com /mnt/

I simply don't understand the point.

FreeBSD won't see those files AFAICS..
 
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