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Bootable diagnostics disk

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First post, by DaveDDS

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Just in case anyone else in interested:

In recently helping a couple people figure out problems with floppy drives on
older systems, I took the time to do something I've been wanting to do for a
while, and make some boot disks to help diagnostics...

I've just put DBGBOOT.ZIP on my site, it contains DOS 5.0 boot disk images
in all common PC formats: 5.25" 360k, 5.25" 1.2m, 3.5" 720k and 3.5" 1.44m

These contain DOS itself, and:

  XMSDSK[.EXE] "on the fly" RamDisk (make working space)
  UNP[.EXE]     Self select/UNPacks common DOS utilities
  UNP DDS[.DDS] select/unpack some of my more useful tools
  UNP IMD[.DDS] select/unpack ImageDisk (good to eval/test floppy)
  UNP PKT[.DDS] select/unpack dozens of network drivers

For 1.2 & 1.44 - all of the above in on the boot disk
720 - separate disk with PKT.DDS
360 - separate disks with DDS.DDS+IMD.DDS and PKT.DDS

Tools in my DBDOS package (also on my site) can be used to write the .IMG
images to real disks, and to write/read files to/from the images.

I'm interested in feedback, especially if there are other tools that might be
useful on the disks (keep in mind: These are small - I include capability to
move things on/off the booted DOS via serial, parallel or network to make
other "stuff" accessible)

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

Reply 1 of 7, by RetroPCCupboard

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Sounds very useful! Thank you! You certainly have made a lot of cool tools on your site.

Reply 2 of 7, by myne

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You might want to search for the many, many "ultimate boot floppies" that were everywhere 25yrs ago.

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Reply 3 of 7, by DaveDDS

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myne wrote on 2025-06-25, 05:20:

You might want to search for the many, many "ultimate boot floppies" that were everywhere 25yrs ago.

Thanks for reminding me - I think I might still have one of those somewhere
(although it might be a CD - still a good source of diagnostic tools)

The main reason I decided to make one is the ability to cover all the common PC floppy formats
of the time (360k to 1.44m) - I still do a fair bit of maintaining all kinds of floppy drives, IIRC the
"ultimate"s were mainly available on the bigger ones...

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

Reply 4 of 7, by DaveDDS

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RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-06-25, 04:33:

Sounds very useful! Thank you! You certainly have made a lot of cool tools on your site.

Thanks! - I've been "in the business" since the 80s, and have always been much more of a "do it yourself" kind
of developer - not to mention that you do have to keep "making stuff" to keep boredom away in retirement!

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

Reply 5 of 7, by DaveDDS

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I've updated the boot images with "MKRAMD", a tool I created to build
RAMD.SYS that makes a conventional memory RamDrive. This give you "working"
storage on super old/simple machines that don't have XMS etc.

I am now able to boot and run tools on a 4.77mhz 8088 XT class machine
(tested in 86box) - yes, UNP takes a little longer to unpack the various
tools - but it does work! (ahh... the joy of experiencing yesteryear!)

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

Reply 6 of 7, by DaveDDS

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Rolled it back to DOS 3.3 - does everything I wanted, and makes the images
noticably smaller - for example, now I can include the DDS tools archive
directly the 360k boot disk image.

** Had to write my own "mem" command as I had forgotten that 3.3 doesn't
include one.

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

Reply 7 of 7, by DaveDDS

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In keeping with having these disks usable on "just about anything",
I've updated a few things that use a screen based UI to correctly detect
and adjust for monochrome/hercules displays.

This includes the unpacker, file view/compare tools, and other test tools.

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

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