Booting in plain DOS

[TC]

Hello, i have a computer that doesn't have a floppy drive or cd rom.
and I would like puppy linux be booted using loadlin.exe in plain dos mode?
if i can find the loadlin.exe file somewere?


Thanks

[Bruce B]

Typically Puppy has been using TINY.EXE instead of LOADLIN.EXE

I've attached TINY.ZIP which contains TINY.EXE

Syntax example:

tiny.exe c:\vmlinuz c:\image.gz root=/dev/ram0 PFILE=pup001-none-262144

Explained:

c:\vmlinuz (is the path to vmlinuz)

c:\image.gz (is the path to image.gz)

PFILE=pup001 (pup001 is the name for the puppy root file. change name if you need)

262144 (size of PFILE is 256 MB)

[TC]

Hello
it boots then error message (s),

RAMDISK: image to big! (63488/11264 blocks)
Freeing initrd memory: 63488k freed
FAT: bogus logical sector size 0
UMSDOS: msdos_read_super failed, mount aborted.
FAT: bogus logical sector size 0
Kernal Panic: VFS: Unable to mount fs on 01:00


any idea (I have around about 192megs installed in that machine)?

but at least it boots soft of now

Thanks

[Bruce B]

Questions:

How much free disk space (FAT partition type) do you have?

Are your FAT partitions FAT16 or FAT32?

Are you running TINY.EXE with the syntax I posted?

Where are vmlinuz, image.gz and user_cram.fs psychically located?

Do I read correctly that you have 192 MB RAM?

If you are using TINY.EXE are you loading other drivers such as HIMEM.SYS first?

Describe how you are booting (e.g. clean boot with F5 or whatever).

You are not starting Windows and then running TINY are you?

[TC]

Hello.
at moment around 250 megs of hdd space.

FAT32 file system (both as i made two parts 1 for XP and other is restore drive)

yes systax as said i then moved files to c:\, i don't have user_cram.fs.
the file were in c:\linux\

yes that system max out at 192 megs of ram, (but puppy needs min 128)?

tried clean boot no himem.sys and with himem.sys.

no i am not that silly to load win then load tiny.

Thanks

[Bruce B]

Thanks for the answers.

Here's what I think I'd try if it were me.

Move user_cram.fs to the root of C:

Modify the size of the pup file from 256 MB to 128 MB, because I think you don't have enough disk space for the 256 MB file. Or make more space if you can.

Not this: PFILE=pup001-none-262144

Rather this: PFILE=pup001-none-131072

Also I wonder if there is a disk error based on a message you received, maybe run SCANDISK.

Let me know.

[TC]

Hello.
user_cram.fs don't have that, can i just make the file using a text editor or does it contain info to start?

Thanks

[Bruce B]

Now I don't understand - user_cram.fs is about 60 MB and is include on the .ISO file you downloaded.

I don't know if you have a CD or if you are mounting the ISO file for file extraction.

Since you don't have a CD-ROM or Floppy, I assume you are downloading the .ISO file and mounting it to extract the three files you will need to run Puppy.

The files you will need from the ISO are:

* vmlinuz
* image.gz
* user_cram.fs

Plus a DOS bootable machine to run TINY.EXE

Explain a little more to me about okay?

Also if you need to me explain how to mount an .ISO file in DOS mode for access to the files inside - let me know.

[Guest]

Hello
files on cd are Boot.cat, Bootmsg.txt, image.gz (largest at around 49 megs), Isolinux.bin, Isolinux.cfg, vmlinuz.
that is all. (no user_cram file)

i have my good machine just got it a month ago (brand new) centrino package. and i have the other no floppy or cdrom built in, the bios doen't have usb booting.
the new machine works nicely with the cd as it boots from the cd.
to get the iso i download on either laptops then burn, then transfered file to hdd on the older computer.
it took about five minutes to dl the cd as we are on broadband. the ISO image is 50.2 megs. (puppy-1.0.1-opera-128ram.iso)

Thanks

[Bruce B]

That's funny. I downloaded the Mozilla version and there was a user_cram.fs on that ISO. Date is April 11, 2005. Size is 55013376.

I just made a little HOWTO to mount an ISO in DOS if anyone is interested.

------------------


How to mount a .ISO file in REAL DOS mode

1) Get the DOS software for free at:

http://www.geocities.com/jadoxa/shsucdx/
download the following files:
SHSUCD 3.00 (119k, includes NASM and Borland C sources).
SHSUCDX 3.02 (55k, requires above).
ISOBAR 1.00 (12k, includes Borland C source). Extracts the boot image from a CD or image file.

2) Extract the files from the .zip archives

make a new directory
extract the files in the order listed above to the directory.

3) Mount the .ISO file

You might need to have LASTDRIVE=Z in CONFIG.SYS (or some higher letter than the number of FAT partitions you have)

Boot to DOS with at least HIMEM.SYS loaded

(probably easiest not load CD-ROM drivers when you boot)

CD to the directory with the files you downloaded and extracted

Run the following commands:

SHSUCDHD /F:C:\PATHTO\NAMEOF.ISO /V

SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH

If it works right the output on the screen will show you what drive letter the .ISO file was mounted on. You can now CD to that location. Copy the necessary files to the location of your choice. I think they will retain the read only attributes. This may not be a problem, but you can remove them if you want.

[TC]

Hello.
update tried on a complete dif system with errors
Ramdisk: could't find valid RAM disk image starting at 0.

then same errors about bogus Fat.


thanks

[Bruce B]

I feel at a loss. Maybe there is something not quite about the FAT32 partitions. I noticed your earlier post reported this message:

UMSDOS: msdos_read_super failed, mount aborted.

I'm NOT SURE but I think it should be VFAT and not UMSDOS. Don't know where to advise you from here. Hope my advise was good so far. Someone else who knows more than I might read this thread and have some ideas what is going on.

[TC]

Hello
thats ok will be able to do soon.
i tried another dist (were i got loadlin from) and it has loaded the install wizard.

(loadlin autoboot\vmlinuz initrd=autoboot\initrd.img ramdisk_size=9216 %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9)

as i am into computers and liked that dist, so i wanted it so it did not affect my bootloader (can't even install anyway )

might just be the dist? do you know of anyone that it worked or your self?

Thanks

[TC]

Hello
got it to work
c:\tiny.exe vmlinuz image.gz ramdisk_size=140456 root=/dev/ram0 PFILE=pup001-none-262144

what i think was wrong not enough ramdisk.

the only prob now is the computer has only USB keyboard.


Thanks