remove the hard drive, and put it in a cheap IDE USB dock, format it on a modern PC and image it with DOS

DaveJustDave wrote:

remove the hard drive, and put it in a cheap IDE USB dock, format it on a modern PC and image it with DOS

Can I do this after changing the HDD for Compact flash ?

DaveJustDave wrote:

remove the hard drive, and put it in a cheap IDE USB dock, format it on a modern PC and image it with DOS

Also, how to image it ? I have ever done only normal instalation.

I use Qemu to mount the drive (virtually) as well as the install floppies (virtually), then do an install as normal.

Violett'Blossom wrote:

DaveJustDave wrote:

Can I do this after changing the HDD for Compact flash ?

Then you can use a simple n-in-1 card reader to image the CF card.

Also if you happen to have a bootable MS-DOS CD/DVD or USB stick you can also use as a kick-start for the installation.

But, I usually do it in a more manual way, just I used to in its days. Use FDISK to partition the target media, format /s, then copy the rest of the files (basically the DOS folder).
It's tricky though because for some stupid design choice FDISK won't let you make a partition active on anything but the first hard drive - the one you boot from to "seed" the new drive. So I usually just do it in a retro rig with floppy drive as I don't have a DOS CD. Or, alternatively, I use Partition Magic which lets me mark any partition on any drive active, thus eliminating the need of a floppy drive or CD. It's picky though, I won't run on any DOS PC: on my VLB 486 it just gives me an empty teal screen and an endless wait...

So, maybe putting a DOS image on a CF card is indeed the quickest and easiest way to do it. I just happen to have a number of retro rigs around so I never really got familiar with imaging software.

alvaro84 wrote:

Then you can use a simple n-in-1 card reader to image the CF card. […]
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Violett'Blossom wrote:

DaveJustDave wrote:

Can I do this after changing the HDD for Compact flash ?

Then you can use a simple n-in-1 card reader to image the CF card.

Also if you happen to have a bootable MS-DOS CD/DVD or USB stick you can also use as a kick-start for the installation.

But, I usually do it in a more manual way, just I used to in its days. Use FDISK to partition the target media, format /s, then copy the rest of the files (basically the DOS folder).
It's tricky though because for some stupid design choice FDISK won't let you make a partition active on anything but the first hard drive - the one you boot from to "seed" the new drive. So I usually just do it in a retro rig with floppy drive as I don't have a DOS CD. Or, alternatively, I use Partition Magic which lets me mark any partition on any drive active, thus eliminating the need of a floppy drive or CD. It's picky though, I won't run on any DOS PC: on my VLB 486 it just gives me an empty teal screen and an endless wait...

So, maybe putting a DOS image on a CF card is indeed the quickest and easiest way to do it. I just happen to have a number of retro rigs around so I never really got familiar with imaging software.

Soo, I just connect the cf to modern pc, where am I supposed to get installed DOS ? Since my modern pc doesn't have any means of optical media. I mean, I am quite new to this way of installing dos, and would love how to step by step guide 😅

gdjacobs wrote:

I use Qemu to mount the drive (virtually) as well as the install floppies (virtually), then do an install as normal.

Qemu can read .img files as diskettes ?

Hi, I don't mean to mix up everything here, but I'd like to give some hints.

a) Some flash media can be made bootable by using HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.
It comes with FreeDOS, but also can ready boot files from physical MS-DOS diskettes.
That tool turns an USB medium, such as a pen drive, into a fake 1.44MB disks, so a modern PC can boot from it.

b) Win32DiskImager can read and write *.IMG files.
It is used for writing back images of SD cards, for example.
One of the popular use cases is the Raspbian OS for the Raspberry Pi computer.

c) In respect of floppy images, *.IMG is just a generic image file extensions.
Some programs also call it *.IMA or *.IMZ (zip compressed).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMG_(file_format)

d) Qemu can handle *.IMG files for both diskette images and hard disk images.
Here's an exmple.
[boot.bat]
@echo off
cd files
qemu -L . -m 256 -hda hdd.vmdk -hdb hddb.vmdk -cdrom IsoFile.iso -fda floppy.ima -vga std -serial file:CON

Where -m is memory, -hda is first HDD (supports different formats), -hdb second HDD. -fda is floppy drive A:.

e) Some Compaq machines had their CMOS setup not located in the BIOS' ROM chip.
Instead, the BIOS was installed on a hidden partition of the original HDD.
Alternatively, it was available for download on the Compaq BBSes or FTP servers.
A self-extractor program then would have had written the CMOS utility to a set of bootable diskettes.

f) Your Compaq PC may or may not expect a specific drive geometry. This depends on the BIOS.
If you're facing trouble, you can try to backup the original HDD by using an USB-IDE adapter
and Win32DiskImager on Windows or DD on *nix. The resulting image can then be mounted in an emulator such as Qemu.
Once you installed MS-DOS onto that image, you can write it back to either the original HDD or the CF card (it must the equal or bigger than the image in capacity).
If you choose the CF card, it should accept the image's drive geometry so your Compaq thinks it is the original HDD.

d) If you don't have access to the CMOS program, you can use the default settings and
use one of the old dynamic disk overlay programs (DDOs), such as Ontrack etc.
They work with any drive geometry. However, this may causes trouble if you like to transfer files
between a modern PC, since the LBA algorithm might be different.

e) If you can't or don't want to use a real floppy, get hold of a cheap floppy emulator.
They usually do support the standard 1.44MB format, which is enough for installing DOS or Windows.
OS/2, however, is another story. That would require a more advanced firmware such as FlashFloppy.

Edit: Never mind, just saw it is a laptop computer..
Found a similar thread here: COMPAQ LTE 5280 + DOS + PCMCIA
Maybe the PCMCIA slot can somehow be used ? I recall there were PCMCIA to CF adapters, too.

Violett'Blossom wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

I use Qemu to mount the drive (virtually) as well as the install floppies (virtually), then do an install as normal.

Qemu can read .img files as diskettes ?

Yes it can, like in the example from Jo22.
In short, the .bat file to start qemu should look like:
qemu -m 16 -hda d: -fda dosfloppy.ima -boot a

Replace d: with the letter of your CF card and the dosfloppy.ima with whatever name is your Dos floppy image named and it should work fine.

You can also use console monitor (reached via CTRL-ALT-2).

change fdX filepath
Load the floppy device or image at filepath on fdX.

eject fdX
Unassign fdX from current device or image.

Jo22 wrote:

Hi, I don't mean to mix up everything here, but I'd like to give some hints. […]
Show full quote

Hi, I don't mean to mix up everything here, but I'd like to give some hints.

a) Some flash media can be made bootable by using HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.
It comes with FreeDOS, but also can ready boot files from physical MS-DOS diskettes.
That tool turns an USB medium, such as a pen drive, into a fake 1.44MB disks, so a modern PC can boot from it.

b) Win32DiskImager can read and write *.IMG files.
It is used for writing back images of SD cards, for example.
One of the popular use cases is the Raspbian OS for the Raspberry Pi computer.

c) In respect of floppy images, *.IMG is just a generic image file extensions.
Some programs also call it *.IMA or *.IMZ (zip compressed).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMG_(file_format)

d) Qemu can handle *.IMG files for both diskette images and hard disk images.
Here's an exmple.
[boot.bat]
@echo off
cd files
qemu -L . -m 256 -hda hdd.vmdk -hdb hddb.vmdk -cdrom IsoFile.iso -fda floppy.ima -vga std -serial file:CON

Where -m is memory, -hda is first HDD (supports different formats), -hdb second HDD. -fda is floppy drive A:.

e) Some Compaq machines had their CMOS setup not located in the BIOS' ROM chip.
Instead, the BIOS was installed on a hidden partition of the original HDD.
Alternatively, it was available for download on the Compaq BBSes or FTP servers.
A self-extractor program then would have had written the CMOS utility to a set of bootable diskettes.

f) Your Compaq PC may or may not expect a specific drive geometry. This depends on the BIOS.
If you're facing trouble, you can try to backup the original HDD by using an USB-IDE adapter
and Win32DiskImager on Windows or DD on *nix. The resulting image can then be mounted in an emulator such as Qemu.
Once you installed MS-DOS onto that image, you can write it back to either the original HDD or the CF card (it must the equal or bigger than the image in capacity).
If you choose the CF card, it should accept the image's drive geometry so your Compaq thinks it is the original HDD.

d) If you don't have access to the CMOS program, you can use the default settings and
use one of the old dynamic disk overlay programs (DDOs), such as Ontrack etc.
They work with any drive geometry. However, this may causes trouble if you like to transfer files
between a modern PC, since the LBA algorithm might be different.

e) If you can't or don't want to use a real floppy, get hold of a cheap floppy emulator.
They usually do support the standard 1.44MB format, which is enough for installing DOS or Windows.
OS/2, however, is another story. That would require a more advanced firmware such as FlashFloppy.

Edit: Never mind, just saw it is a laptop computer..
Found a similar thread here: COMPAQ LTE 5280 + DOS + PCMCIA
Maybe the PCMCIA slot can somehow be used ? I recall there were PCMCIA to CF adapters, too.

Well mine is a laptop with CD drive only, unfortunately you can't boot from any cd, since it was designed to boot from floppy then swap it for cdrom drive and then install win 95/98. Anyway I really appreciate your Post 😊

Violett'Blossom wrote:

Well mine is a laptop with CD drive only, unfortunately you can't boot from any cd, since it was designed to boot from floppy then swap it for cdrom drive and then install win 95/98. Anyway I really appreciate your Post 😊

I'd pop the HDD out and emulate for the win on this one.

The hardest bit when installing DOS is partitioning the hard drive (DOS fdisk is functionally limited), the next difficult bit is booting DOS so you can formatting the hard drive partition and making it bootable.
"Installing" DOS is as simple as copying files across.

Personally I would do the following steps:
Requirements: A PC which can boot from CD, and has a PATA/IDE interface, a CF to IDE adapter, a live bootable Linux CD, A bootable MS-DOS CD (I got mine via P2P)

1) Connect the CF/IDE adaptor as the master drive on the IDE interface
2) Power up the PC with the linux bootable CD, make whatever changes, push whatever buttons to boot from CD
3) Get to a linux root prompt
Use fdisk to (1) create a primary partition on the CF drive which is no bigger than 2.1Gb (2) mark the partition as bootable ("a" command), (3) change the partition type to 06 ("t" command).
Write the new partition details, then shutdown.
4) Remove the linux CD, insert the bootable MSDOS CD, and boot from it
Exit from any setup program to a DOS prompt.
Run "format/s c:"
Remove the CD from the drive, and boot the PC from the CF drive - you should get a DOS prompt.
You may want to quickly try booting from the CF in the target laptop to make sure that it is actually bootable.

5) Remove CF from the PC. Plug it into a USB card reader on your favorite PC. "install" DOS by copying the contents of the C:\DOS directory from a donor installation.
Copy or create an autoexec.bat and config.sys as required.

Just sticking my oar in here as I need to do something similar for my Olivetti.

Coming from the Amiga world to DOS were we would use winuae to setup a CF card so equally is it not possible to use dosbox under windows to partition, format and setup the real drive?

No, because DOSBox doesn't support mounting a device as a physical hard drive. You'd have to mount an image file, set everything up on that and then raw copy it onto the CF card.

jmarsh wrote:

No, because DOSBox doesn't support mounting a device as a physical hard drive. You'd have to mount an image file, set everything up on that and then raw copy it onto the CF card.

thanks, saves me time messing about with it. I'll probably just put the drive into another retro computer and use it to set it up.