Dear Syslinux folks,
For a firmware update I am following the Gentoo Wiki [1] to create a floppy
image of 20 MB, so that the vendor update utility fits.
Unfortunately, FreeDOS does not load, and it seems to hang loading the
FreeDOS kernel. The original FreeDOS image boots. Do you know if that issue
is memdisk related? It?s started from GRUB with the commands below.
linux16 /boot/memdisk floppy
initrd16 /boot/freedos.img
boot
Kind regards,
Paul
[1]: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/BIOS_Update#Create_a_custom_FreeDOS_image
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Haven't yet had a need for 10MB FDD images. The biggest I had to create was 5MB (5760kb). At that time I had to use WinImage to create the FDD image and it took me a while to figure out the correct settings. My notes state: "I'm getting 'missing FAT' errors in WinImage, and 7-zip complains about 'unexpected end'. The fix is to increasing the FDD Heads from 2 to 4 and keeping Sectors at 36 in WinImage settings. Here are the settings I used: Bytes per sector: 512 (0x200) Sector per Cluster: 4 (2048) Total number of Sectors: 11520 (0x2d00) Number of FATs: 2 FAT12/16 Root Entries: 240 (240 files can exist in root before a subdirectory has to be created) Media Descriptor: 240 Sector per FAT: 9 Sector per Track: 36 Heads: 4 Reserved sectors: 1 Hidden Sectors: 0 Physical Drive Number: 0" WinImage is a Windows program. I could never figure out an equivalent to WinImage for GNU/Linux. On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 1:04 PM, Paul Menzel via Syslinux < syslinux at zytor.com> wrote:> Dear Syslinux folks, > > > For a firmware update I am following the Gentoo Wiki [1] to create a floppy > image of 20 MB, so that the vendor update utility fits. > > Unfortunately, FreeDOS does not load, and it seems to hang loading the > FreeDOS kernel. The original FreeDOS image boots. Do you know if that issue > is memdisk related? It?s started from GRUB with the commands below. > > linux16 /boot/memdisk floppy > initrd16 /boot/freedos.img > boot > > > Kind regards, > > Paul > > > [1]: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/BIOS_Update#Create_a_custom_ > FreeDOS_image > > > _______________________________________________ > Syslinux mailing list > Submissions to Syslinux at zytor.com > Unsubscribe or set options at: > http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux >-- Tech III * AppControl * Endpoint Protection * Server Maintenance Buncombe County Schools Technology Department Network Group ComicSans Awareness Campaign <http://comicsanscriminal.com>
In other words: I'm suggesting to use WinImage as it also allows easy injection of new files *and* updating of already existing files. May I ask which vendor is distributing a DOS FW update that is 20MB? I'd like to see the files. Sometimes you just need the .bin/.rom and the actual FW update EXE and it would fit a 5MB FDD image. On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 2:03 PM, R S <rene.shuster at bcsemail.org> wrote:> Haven't yet had a need for 10MB FDD images. The biggest I had to create > was 5MB (5760kb). At that time I had to use WinImage to create the FDD > image and it took me a while to figure out the correct settings. > > My notes state: > > "I'm getting 'missing FAT' errors in WinImage, and 7-zip complains about > 'unexpected end'. The fix is to increasing the FDD Heads from 2 to 4 and > keeping Sectors at 36 in WinImage settings. > Here are the settings I used: > Bytes per sector: 512 (0x200) > Sector per Cluster: 4 (2048) > Total number of Sectors: 11520 (0x2d00) > Number of FATs: 2 > FAT12/16 Root Entries: 240 (240 files can exist in root before a > subdirectory has to be created) > Media Descriptor: 240 > Sector per FAT: 9 > Sector per Track: 36 > Heads: 4 > Reserved sectors: 1 > Hidden Sectors: 0 > Physical Drive Number: 0" > > WinImage is a Windows program. I could never figure out an equivalent to > WinImage for GNU/Linux. > > On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 1:04 PM, Paul Menzel via Syslinux < > syslinux at zytor.com> wrote: > >> Dear Syslinux folks, >> >> >> For a firmware update I am following the Gentoo Wiki [1] to create a >> floppy >> image of 20 MB, so that the vendor update utility fits. >> >> Unfortunately, FreeDOS does not load, and it seems to hang loading the >> FreeDOS kernel. The original FreeDOS image boots. Do you know if that >> issue >> is memdisk related? It?s started from GRUB with the commands below. >> >> linux16 /boot/memdisk floppy >> initrd16 /boot/freedos.img >> boot >> >> >> Kind regards, >> >> Paul >> >> >> [1]: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/BIOS_Update#Create_a_custom_Fre >> eDOS_image >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Syslinux mailing list >> Submissions to Syslinux at zytor.com >> Unsubscribe or set options at: >> http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux >> > > > > -- > Tech III * AppControl * Endpoint Protection * Server Maintenance > Buncombe County Schools Technology Department Network Group > ComicSans Awareness Campaign <http://comicsanscriminal.com> >-- Tech III * AppControl * Endpoint Protection * Server Maintenance Buncombe County Schools Technology Department Network Group ComicSans Awareness Campaign <http://comicsanscriminal.com>
On 06/18/2018 08:04 PM, Paul Menzel via Syslinux wrote:> image of 20 MB, so that the vendor update utility fits.I used this process to get FreeDOS on a memstick and upgrade firmwares. The bootcode may be syslinux's, but I used `fdisk -c=dos` and `ms-sys` to get it done (http://doc.nethence.com/freedos), fdisk -c=dos /dev/sdb mkfs.fat -F16 /dev/sdb1 ms-sys -w /dev/sdb ms-sys --fat16free /dev/sdb1 pierre-philipp
Thanks for putting together this documentation. Very helpful. On Wed, Jun 27, 2018 at 6:57 AM, pierre-philipp braun via Syslinux < syslinux at zytor.com> wrote:> On 06/18/2018 08:04 PM, Paul Menzel via Syslinux wrote: > > image of 20 MB, so that the vendor update utility fits. > > I used this process to get FreeDOS on a memstick and upgrade firmwares. > The bootcode may be syslinux's, but I used `fdisk -c=dos` and `ms-sys` > to get it done (http://doc.nethence.com/freedos), > > fdisk -c=dos /dev/sdb > mkfs.fat -F16 /dev/sdb1 > ms-sys -w /dev/sdb > ms-sys --fat16free /dev/sdb1 > > pierre-philipp > _______________________________________________ > Syslinux mailing list > Submissions to Syslinux at zytor.com > Unsubscribe or set options at: > http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux >-- Tech III * AppControl * Endpoint Protection * Server Maintenance Buncombe County Schools Technology Department Network Group ComicSans Awareness Campaign <http://comicsanscriminal.com>