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Booting from a Compact Flash (XT-IDE)... How?

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DaCiRo

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2014
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169
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Japan
I somehow managed to ruin the Compact Flash card (64Mb) that I used to boot my 5160XT from and XT-IDE board.
I had made a back up copy of the contents of the card and though that by getting a new one and copying the back up files over it would be sufficient,....but it isn't, I cant bood from the new card as I did with the old one.

These are the things I tried;
1.- I have copied the DOS directory installed files (DOS 6.22 files) + Autoexec.bat +Config.sys+Command.com = No Good
2.- Formated the Compact Flash using an old laptop with XP installed in it, selecting the option to make it bootable = No Good
3.-Pulled half of my hair... =No Good.

Does anyone know what I am missing and how to make the Compact Flash card bootable?
BTW, I only have the XT5160, and old laptop with XP installed in it and a MacBook Pro (no other PC to work with as a tool/data bridge)
 
I think you should be able to boot from an MS-DOS floppy in the 5160, run FDISK, create a partition and format that. After that you should be able to either install DOS, or from the boot floppy do SYS C: and copy your DOS files to a subdir DOS on the Compact Flash (C:).

That's how mine work... you should have a 5.25" 360K boot floppy with DOS files on it though.
 
FDISK /MBR
Many flash cards do not have working MBR. The command above will install one.

And run SYS C: too. To do all that you'll need to boot from a floppy with the same MS-DOS version you had installed on you card. Win95 will not work, it will not boot on anything less than Intel 80386. No even in MS-DOS mode.
 
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Thanks.
I have a DOS 2.01 disk. I can boot from it however I can't access the Fix drive (C:) or the Compact Flash drive (D:). It only recognized the floppy drive (A:)
 
...Also the other machines I have is an old IBM laptop with Windows XP installed.
 
DaCiRo said:
...Also the other machines I have is an old IBM laptop with Windows XP installed.
Click to expand...

Your first problem is that you are making a system disk with XP. XP boot disks will not be compatible with your old machine.

You need to make a boot disk from an image file, and format your disk in a way that makes it readable on the old machine.

Here is some steps that will help:


1) When you boot, does the XT-IDE screen come up and say that it sees the compact flash card? If so, thats good.
2) Get a copy of dos 6.22 image file and extract it onto a floppy disk - hopefully your xp machine is capable of writing a floppy disk that is readable on your IBM. Make sure you know what density you need to format (i.e. 720k), and format the disk on your xp machine using: FORMAT A: /f:720 (it will only format 3.5" disks as 720k if you cover up the one hole with black tape - the one without the shutter)

You can get a boot disk image from http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/dos.html or https://www.kirsle.net/msdos
To extract .img files to a disk, I use winimage. You can find a version compatible with xp here: http://www.winimage.com/download.htm

If your disk is formatted and ready to go, open the dos 6.22 image in winimage, and then write it to the disk (I believe there is a menu option to extract to a:

Do the rest of the steps from the machine with the xt-ide in it.

3) Boot from newly built boot Floppy and run FDISK /MBR
4) Delete existing partitions on the compact flash, and create new primary partitiion (max size 2GB). Exit fdisk.
5) Reboot from floppy disk and then run FORMAT C: /S (to format and copy over system files)
6) Reboot from compact flash (remove the floppy disk).

You can now remove your compact flash card, and copy files back over from your xp machine if you have backed it up.

Hope this helps.
 
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Hi
This is a great and well organized set of information. Thanks!! I understood better now what I was doing wrong.
I have some impediments though to run this successfully end to end.
1) The XT-IDE detects the Compact Flash card, so at least we know it is not an issue with the card itself.
2) I only have a 5'25" 360K floppy drive in the XT and it doesn't seem possible to connect it to the XP laptop to copy over the MSDOS 6.22 image. The Laptop only has a CD-ROM drive. So I ma stuck here at step #2.
One thing I did do (That I could not do before);
A)Booting from the MSDOS2.01 floppy that I have I Created a DOS partition in the Compact Flash card (FDISK) and Formatted it (Format C: /s) -> This seems simple step,...well I was also stuck here for a week before your replies :),..so thanks again.
B) Copy the MSDOS 6.22 install files to the Compact Flash
@@ At this stage I still cannot boot from the Compact Flash,...it will simply not boot so I need to boot with the MSDOS 2.01 floppy@@
C) Access the Compact Flash MSDOS 6.22 installation files and RUN Setup.exe
@@At this point it asks me for "Insetr the 1st disk of MSDOS 6.22 in drive A and Ctrl+Alt+Del to start installation@@ (Which I can't do because I do not have the original MSDOS 6.22 install floppies).... Back to being stuck again.

Is it maybe the only way forward that I purchase a 1.2Md 5'25" inch floppy drive and the MSDOS 6.22 5'25" disk to be able to proceed with this installation?
 
What I would do is to get a free Virtual PC program like QEMU or Virtual PC, using MS-DOS images, setup a small virtual hard disk with DOS. Then, put the SD Card in your laptop, mount it in the virtual program, format it, do a SYS n: (where n is the letter of the mounted SD Card), and copy the DOS files over to it.

That should work.

I would recommend getting a Backpack Parallel Port 3.5" floppy drive (eBay), and a USB 3.5" floppy drive. It makes life easier for data transfers, and less chance to mess up your SD Card.
 
I wonder if you could do something with dosbox to make a bootable compact flash hard disk drive.

Seems feasible.

I might try and see if I can do that tonight and report back.
 
After you formatted the compact flash on the xt-ide machine, why don't you extract the dos 6.22 image files to a directory like 'c:\setup" on your compact flash card using your xp machine (with winimage). There should be 3 disks for dos 6.22 setup (https://www.kirsle.net/download).

Then boot from the dos 2.0 floppy and run the install from the compact flash card.

Dos 6.22 will never be able to install from 5.25" 360k floppy drives, but I believe you can install if you copy all the files to a setup directory. I may be wrong though.. i think it will work.

The other option is to send me your compact flash card and I can build it for you and send it back - I have several 1GB cards here and could spare one if you just send me a replacement. I'd be happy to do that too. Just PM me.
 
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SkydivinGirl said:
The easiest way to install DOS 6.22 on a machine that does not support 1.44MB floppies is to use the SerDrive function of the XTIDE Universal BIOS. Using a serial cable between a new PC and the classic PC, you can boot 1.44MB image files on machines that don't support the larger capacity disks. :)

Heather
Click to expand...

That's a good idea. I haven't tried that before.

If he can find a serial cable, and if his XP machine has a serial port available - certainly doable.
 
mojorific said:
Your first problem is that you are making a system disk with XP. XP boot disks will not be compatible with your old machine.
Click to expand...

There is a tool which will let you create bootable USB devices including CF, MS, SD, and even USB Flash Sticks, on any Windows machine, including Windows 8. It's a tool made by HP: HPUSBFW.EXE called HP USB DISK STORAGE FORMAT TOOL V2.18.

You place the operating system boot files in a directory, insert the USB Flash Card and run the Tool. You then select the Format (FAT, FAT32 or NTFS), select Make Bootable and then point to the directory with the boot files. I use this tool all the time to create bootable flash for Win 98 and Win 95. Should also work for just plain DOS. For Win98, I have a directory with the following Files in it (all Hidden):
COMMAND.COM
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
BOOTLOG.PRV
BOOTLOG.TXT

I'm not sure where I got the HP USB tool from. I think it may have come with one of their systems for the purpose of creating boot USB for updating the computer bios. It's a nice utility.

You may still need to do the FDISK /MBR, if it still won't boot.

Bill
Smithville, NJ
 
Hi all.
Thanks for all your comments. and Majorific: Thanks a lot for the link to Kirsle's website with the DOS6.22 images

I copied the images to a DOS622 folder in my laptop and using DOSBOX I was able to launch the setup.exe, however it asked me again to "Insert the 1st disk of MSDOS 6.22 in drive A and Ctrl+Alt+Del to start installation". This is the same message that I got yesterday running the installation from the Compact Flash card where I copied the extracted DOS6.22 image file. So DOSBOX seems not to be the solution unless I find a way to skip the step that forces me to reboot and start the installation from Drive A:\

So in summary running 6.22 installation from either the Flasch Card directly in the XT machine or doing in in DOSBOX iin the WinXP laptop leans to the same message "Insert the 1st disk of MSDOS 6.22 in drive A and Ctrl+Alt+Del to start installation"

I think I have only two ways forward:
1.- Use the QMEU suggested by AiHartman. -> I am afraid though that it will ask me again for the Drive A install reboot step (will try over the weened thought)
2.- If I had a 3.5" floppy drive, or a BackPack floppy drive in my XT I could reboot from the 3.5'" floppy images.-> However getting one will take me months.
3.- Find somewhere the images of the DOS 6.22 but in the 5.25" 360K format. -> I think this will be close to impossible.

I am sure though that I am missing something,...I am convinced there must be another way out.
 
sorry I meant "I think I have 3 ways forward". ...Have the feeling of going backwards a little so maybe that's why I wrote 2 :)
 
DaCiRo said:
3.- Find somewhere the images of the DOS 6.22 but in the 5.25" 360K format. -> I think this will be close to impossible.

I am sure though that I am missing something,...I am convinced there must be another way out.
Click to expand...
I have a 360K DOS 6.22 image. I made it from a 360K DOS disk I made for my XT.

Another possibility is to have someone send you a working DOS 6.22 boot disk via the mail.
 
Hi Stone.
You do?. Wow! I though this was almost impossible. How many 360K disk in total takes to store MSDOS 6.22?
I would love to get a copy of those. If OK with you I would really like to send you some blanks ones and transfer you the shipping funds.... that would be a real nice favor.
 
Did you copy all 3 of the image file contents to the folder on the compact flash card? Dos 6.22 uses 3 disk images, and each are needed for the install.

Otherwise, I would probably go the serial connection route, get a boot disk, or get someone to send you a compact flash card with dos 6.22 already installed.

Dos 6.22 was never intended for 360k drives - although using a 360k boot disk will atleast help you to get the system files back on the compact flash.


You can then transfer all the old files back over again via windows xp.
 
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