Creating bootable USB key

Creating bootable USB key

[Kenneth Porter]

I thought I might be able to use dosemu to make my Kingston 1 GB USB key 
bootable. I've got dosemu-1.3.2 installed to my Fedora Core 4 system 
(figured out how to package as an RPM). I can map the key to a drive letter 
using "lredir E: \LINUX\FS\media\KINGSTON" but that just accesses the 
filesystem object. Is there some way to bypass Linux and give dosemu direct 
access to /dev/sdb (partitioned as HD, not superfloppy) so that I can SYS 
it?

Re: Creating bootable USB key

[Jochen Reinwand]

On Sunday 20 November 2005 19:05, you wrote:
> I thought I might be able to use dosemu to make my Kingston 1 GB USB key
> bootable. I've got dosemu-1.3.2 installed to my Fedora Core 4 system
> (figured out how to package as an RPM). I can map the key to a drive letter
> using "lredir E: \LINUX\FS\media\KINGSTON" but that just accesses the
> filesystem object. Is there some way to bypass Linux and give dosemu direct
> access to /dev/sdb (partitioned as HD, not superfloppy) so that I can SYS
> it?

I don't know if dosemu can do it, but I have another option for you. You can 
perhaps use ms-sys (http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/).

Good luck!
Jochen

Re: Creating bootable USB key

[Andrew Brooks]

Jochen Reinwand wrote:
> I don't know if dosemu can do it, but I have another option for you. You can
> perhaps use ms-sys (http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/).

That says that it does not copy any system files.

I found this most useful:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/5735

Andrew

Re: Creating bootable USB key

[Bart Oldeman]

On Sun, 20 Nov 2005, Kenneth Porter wrote:

> I thought I might be able to use dosemu to make my Kingston 1 GB USB key 
> bootable. I've got dosemu-1.3.2 installed to my Fedora Core 4 system (figured 
> out how to package as an RPM). I can map the key to a drive letter using 
> "lredir E: \LINUX\FS\media\KINGSTON" but that just accesses the filesystem 
> object. Is there some way to bypass Linux and give dosemu direct access to 
> /dev/sdb (partitioned as HD, not superfloppy) so that I can SYS it?

You should be able to use linux fdisk to partition /dev/sdb as a HD. Then 
you have partitions /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2, etc.

Suppose thet /dev/sdb1 is your FAT partition. Then just specifying
$_hdimage="drives/* /dev/sdb1"
gives dosemu (with the right permissions on /dev/sdb1) direct access to 
/dev/sdb1. Don't forget to umount /media/KINGSTON in Linux first, 
otherwise nasty things may happen. Most likely it'll be drive D:; in the 
default setup that is lredir'ed to your home directory, but you can undo 
that using

lredir del d:

Then try

sys d:

and hope for the best.

Bart

Re: Creating bootable USB key

[Jochen Reinwand]

On Montag 21 November 2005 11:22, Andrew Brooks wrote:
> Jochen Reinwand wrote:
> > I don't know if dosemu can do it, but I have another option for you. You
> > can perhaps use ms-sys (http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/).
>
> That says that it does not copy any system files.

You should really be able to do that on you own!

To be more precisely: These system files are only included in these so called 
"Operation Systems" (or better: Disk Operating Systems). ms-sys is not an 
operation system, it's a Linux utility writing a MBR compatible with DOS.

Jochen

Re: Creating bootable USB key

[Kenneth Porter]

--On Monday, November 21, 2005 12:34 PM +0100 Jochen Reinwand 
<jbr.1@gmx.net> wrote:

>> That says that it does not copy any system files.
>
> You should really be able to do that on you own!
>
> To be more precisely: These system files are only included in these so
> called  "Operation Systems" (or better: Disk Operating Systems). ms-sys
> is not an  operation system, it's a Linux utility writing a MBR
> compatible with DOS.

My concern was in how the MBR boot code finds the "system files". Early 
versions of DOS required that the files be contiguous at the beginning of 
the partition. I'm not sure what the later ones do. GRUB and friends 
require that the block numbers of the target file be patched into the 1st 
level boot code. How does the MBR written by ms-sys know what "system file" 
to transfer control to? Is it a hard-coded name?

Re: Creating bootable USB key

[Jochen Reinwand]

> How does the MBR written by ms-sys know what "system file"
> to transfer control to? Is it a hard-coded name?

AFAIK it reads the filesystem (FAT) to search for some typical filenames, but 
I'm not sure...