Re: OT: DOS booting

[J R FOX jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

--- Harry Binswanger  wrote:

> There is one: ntfs-4dos. Unfortunately, I so far
> haven't been able to
> download it.

Harry,

I thought I had heard of one called ntfsdos (no "4",
and I think no Write Access either), but I'll have to
look around for the other one you mentioned.

> I burned two version of FREEDOS. One asked for a
> key, which I don't have
> and wasn't in the zip file I dl-ed from them, nor
> can I find anything about
> a key on their site (figures). The other almost
> booted. Almost--until I got
> an Opcode error with a memory address. Right now,
> I'm trying to report that
> on Bugzilla/FreeDOS.
>
> Seems like there's a "catch" with everything.

I'm not clear on whether you obtained a separate
FREEDOS from the source, or somewhere else. I can
tell you that with the DFSEE bootable CDs (or boot
floppies), even where I messed up by not having a
current Reg. Key on them, the FREEDOS portion of it
still worked without complaint. By that I mean I
could still Exit to DOS and execute various DOS
commands, with NO error. The DFSEE portion of the CD
or disk would inform me that I did not have a valid
Reg. Key, or that it had expired, and therefore I
could only use Viewing functions of the program, as
opposed to repair / action type functions. And I've
been making these disks and CDs for a majority of the
new DFSEE versions for the last three years, as they
were released.

But to reiterate, I don't think it will be a trivial
matter to add stuff to the boot CD (including Xy,
where you will *also* have to deal with "Portable Xy"
type issues, just as if you wanted to run Xy off of a
memory stick). Rather, I think an ISO editor of some
kind will be needed, to open up the ISO and
custom-tailor its contents. I think working FAT-32
and NTFS file system drivers will also be needed to
really step up the usefulness of the CD to where we
would want it to be. But I do think this is
attainable, and makes a very worthwhile project.

> work when the main drive is in trouble. Of course,
> "Recovery discs" came
> with the computer. And of course, they don't do
> anything helpful.

Unless all you want to do is restore factory defaults,
which undoes everything you had, ever since the
initial plain Windows install. I was just reading
some complaints on this very score, in another thread
on another mailing list. Some mfr.s don't even give
you the "Recovery Disks", unless you pay extra for
them. Instead, you just get a hidden Restore
Partition, but with the same limitations.


Jordan