Help with Rufus Boot USBs? \ VOGONS

Help with Rufus Boot USBs?

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First post, by Tumerboy

Posted on 2023-01-06, 18:48

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Hey all, I've been trying to get dos 6.22 up and running on an old HP T5710 that I picked up a while ago. I've got a CF Card adapter, and have been trying to get it to boot off a USB for a bit.

I see everyone talk about how wonderful and easy Rufus is for this, so I've tried it (a number of times now), but keep running into issues.

If I use Rufus to create a FreeDos USB (just the FreeDos drop down option), that USB will work fine, and I can boot from it without issue on the T5710. So I know it CAN boot from USB.

However, I've tried using the "Select Image" option, with various images from BootDisk.com (DOS, W95, W98SE, etc.)

With each of these, Rufus does its thing, and the drive is prepped in seconds. Seems simple enough. However, as soon as it's done that, the drive disappears from Windows Explorer. I can't see it anymore. Rufus can still see it, and if I reformat it to be non-bootable, it'll show up again.

If I then pop that USB stick out of my main rig (I just have to pull it, since I can't eject?), and put it into the thinclient, I will get a "Non-System Disk or Disk Error" message.

What am I missing here? Everyone talks about this like its the easiest thing in the world. Is there some "make it work" checkbox I'm missing?

Thanks

Reply 1 of 6, by Jo22

Posted on 2023-01-07, 05:17

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Hi there! 🙂 Sorry to hear that Rufus causes you trouble. 🙁
It's normally one of the better programs.

That being said, could you, um, please be a bit more specific?
- What specs has your main rig (more or less) ? Which Windows version you're using? 32/64-Bit?
- Which version of Rufus causes trouble?
- Which version of FreeDOS etc. was downloaded/installed by Rufus?

It's optional, but knowning the type of USB ports (USB 2.0 or 3.x/4 on main rig) and the pen drive (capacity) could perhaps help troubleshooting, too.

The HP thin client itself is capable of booting Windows 9x, by the way.
I have a similar looking one.

However, I don't know how I installed Windows back then.

It's possible that I used an USB floppy or an USB CD-ROM to make the HDD (CF card) bootable.

Edit: Alternatively, the HP USB Format Tool can help.
It was used in the 2000s, before Rufus existed.

https://www.heise.de/download/product/hp-usb- … rmat-tool-97463

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Reply 2 of 6, by Tumerboy

Posted on 2023-01-07, 06:28

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Thanks, yes, that's totally fair, just wasn't on my mind at the time. Thanks for the reply.

The main rig I've tried this from is running Windows 10. It's an i7-10700, with 32gb ram.

I was using the latest version of Rufus (3.21)

I'm not sure what version of FreeDOS it used (It doesnt' say in the program, and I've overwritten that drive at this point.)

I've been plugging into the front ports on my case, which are blue, so I believe are 3.0, but I realize I don't know how to test/prove that.

Reply 3 of 6, by majestyk

Posted on 2023-01-07, 06:42

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Any anti-virus / malware scanner running in the background?

Reply 4 of 6, by Tumerboy

Posted on 2023-01-07, 06:53

Tumerboy Offline

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Yes, there was definitely anti-virus running in the background.

Reply 5 of 6, by megatron-uk

Posted on 2023-01-07, 09:56

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Am I right in thinking the built-in Freedos option works... but that when you use a *floppy disk image* from bootdisk.com, it doesn't?

I think that may be the key - I don't think you can write a 3.5" floppy disk image to the start of a USB flash drive and it work like that... unless I'm mistaken?

Also what *files* are you using from bootdisk.com? Most of them (for example all on this page: https://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm) are compressed executables that need to be run and unpacked first (you should end up with something like Windows98_SE.img, for example).

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Reply 6 of 6, by Tumerboy

Posted on 2023-01-07, 16:30

Tumerboy Offline

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megatron-uk wrote on 2023-01-07, 09:56:

Am I right in thinking the built-in Freedos option works... but that when you use a *floppy disk image* from bootdisk.com, it doesn't?

I think that may be the key - I don't think you can write a 3.5" floppy disk image to the start of a USB flash drive and it work like that... unless I'm mistaken?

Also what *files* are you using from bootdisk.com? Most of them (for example all on this page: https://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm) are compressed executables that need to be run and unpacked first (you should end up with something like Windows98_SE.img, for example).

You are correct. The Rufus native FreeDOS boots, but the boot floppy images do not. I have seen a number of videos/tutorials stating this process (download a disk from bootdisk.com, use rufus to put it on USB, boot from USB), but maybe I'm missing something?

Yes, they come compressed, but I've used 7zip to uncompress them into .ima or .img files.

I have also sometimes been able to see the invisible usb drive show up when I stick it into another machine, and can confirm that (at least at a glance), it appears to have all the right files. (for Win95 or 98, etc.)

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