CDNWiki - View Source: KnowledgeBase/DOSBoot

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There are two ways of creating a bootable DOS filesystem:
* [Using MS-DOS and 'sys' in ~DosBox|#DosBox]
* [Using FreeDOS and 'sys-freedos.pl'|#sys-freedos.pl]

The methods documented below will create a 2.88MB boot floppy (as 1.44 often hasn't enough space to hold the bios updates for modern motherboards).

----

!! #[DosBox]

* Make sure that you have a copy of DosBox and a copy of a Windows 98 MS-DOS boot floppy.

* Create a directory to hold the disk images, so that you don't lose them
<verbatim>
mkdir ~/boot
cd ~/boot
</verbatim>

* Create a blank 2.88MB floppy image and format as FAT12
<verbatim>
dd if=/dev/zero of=floppy.img bs=1024 count=2880
mkdosfs -vvv floppy.img
</verbatim>

[Upload:CyberLeo/2.88Boot-1.png]

* Launch ~DosBox
<verbatim>
dosbox
</verbatim>

* Within ~DosBox, mount the directory containing the images, and issue a boot command to boot the Windows 98 MS-DOS boot floppy
<verbatim>
mount c ~/boot
c:
boot win98s~1.img floppy.img
</verbatim>

[Upload:CyberLeo/2.88Boot-2.png]
[Upload:CyberLeo/2.88Boot-3.png]

* After Windows 98 MS-DOS boots, you will be dropped to a DOS prompt. Copy the system over to the B: disk as usual
<verbatim>
sys b:
</verbatim>

[Upload:CyberLeo/2.88Boot-4.png]
[Upload:CyberLeo/2.88Boot-5.png]

* The new disk image should now be bootable, and fully compatible with memdisk (you don't really have a real 2.88MB floppy drive lying around, do you?)

----

!! #[sys-freedos.pl]

You will need
* mtools
* mkdosfs from dosfstools
* kernel.sys and command.com from the [FreeDOS distribution|http://www.freedos.org/freedos/files/] (fdbasecd.iso:/freedos/setup/odin)
* [sys-freedos.pl|KnowledgeBase/Scripts/sys-freedos.pl] from the [sys-freedos|http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/sys/sys-freedos-linux/] tarball
** This requires perl, and probably also nasm to build the boot block

<code brush="bash">
# Make a file
truncate -s $(( 2880 * 1024 )) floppy.img

# Add FAT12 filesystem
mkdosfs -vvF12 -n DOSBOOTFLOPPY floppy.img

# Copy in the FreeDOS files
mcopy -i floppy.img kernel.sys command.com ::

# Hide them, for consistency
mattrib -i floppy.img +H +S ::kernel.sys ::command.com

# Install boot block
sys-freedos.pl --disk=floppy.img
</code>

* The new disk image should now be bootable