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First post, by marietto2008

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Hello to everyone.

I'm on Ubuntu 11.10 X64 and I'm trying to install Windows ME on DosBox.

I'm stuck on making the hard disk image with bximage. Here is what I did :

root@ziomario:~/.dosbox# bximage
================================================== ======================
bximage
Disk Image Creation Tool for Bochs
$Id: bximage.c,v 1.34 2009/04/14 09:45:22 sshwarts Exp $
================================================== ======================

Do you want to create a floppy disk image or a hard disk image?
Please type hd or fd. [hd]

What kind of image should I create?
Please type flat, sparse or growing. [flat]

Enter the hard disk size in megabytes, between 1 and 129023
[10] 600

I will create a 'flat' hard disk image with
cyl=1219
heads=16
sectors per track=63
total sectors=1228752
total size=599.98 megabytes

What should I name the image?
[c.img]

Writing: [] Done.

I wrote 629121024 bytes to c.img.

The following line should appear in your bochsrc:
ata0-master: type=disk, path="c.img", mode=flat, cylinders=1219, heads=16, spt=63

and inside dosbox 0.74 :

imgmount 2 c.img -size 512,63,16,1219 -t hdd -fs none
boot 622c.img
fdisk ; 1/1/Y
reboot
dosbox
imgmount c c.img
imgcount d d.img
boot 622c.img
format c:

FORMATTING : 95.9M --> when I created a 600 MB disk image...and I tried with a lot of combinations...only 400 MB with 812 cylinders seems to work great,but windows ME needs more space to be installed. At least 800 MB.

Reply 2 of 19, by marietto2008

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No man,I can't. Because I'm working on a ARM soc where I can't install vmware or virtualbox. Instead,dosbox is supported.

Reply 3 of 19, by wd

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and I'm trying to install Windows ME on DosBox

That's not what DOSBox is for and it won't work.

Reply 4 of 19, by marietto2008

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why not ? which big differences there are between installing windows 95 or windows me ? they are built on top of dos,both.

Reply 5 of 19, by Qbix

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windows 95 is not really supported either. It's just for fun. Nothing else.

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 6 of 19, by wd

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they are built on top of dos,both.

Pretty wrong, but I'll neither discuss that here nor is this of any interest for your "problem".

Reply 7 of 19, by marietto2008

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no man,it's not only my "problem",it's a problem for everyone wants to install windows 98/me with more than 400 MB of disk space.

Reply 8 of 19, by marietto2008

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and I don't know what's your problem. Why are you tired ? and with whom ?

Reply 10 of 19, by IIGS_User

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Qbix wrote:

windows 95 is not really supported either. It's just for fun. Nothing else.

It is a game.

Klimawandel.

Reply 11 of 19, by Joey_sw

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regardless what you want with your img files,
you might want to check if fdisk doing its job properly.

iirc, some version of fdisk glitched against > 512 MB hdd
other alternative is to format the img outside of dosbox and use -fs fat afterward

-fffuuu

Reply 12 of 19, by Joey_sw

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i believe i found where it went wrong marietto2008

I will create a 'flat' hard disk image with cyl=1219 heads=16 sectors per track=63 total sectors=1228752 total size=599.98 megab […]
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I will create a 'flat' hard disk image with
cyl=1219
heads=16
sectors per track=63
total sectors=1228752
total size=599.98 megabytes

you see, when using -size , your hdd image must conform to CHS limitation, that defined by INT 13h

INT 13 - DISK - READ SECTOR(S) INTO MEMORY
AH = 02h
AL = number of sectors to read (must be nonzero)
CH = low eight bits of cylinder number
CL = sector number 1-63 (bits 0-5)
high two bits of cylinder (bits 6-7, hard disk only)
DH = head number
DL = drive number (bit 7 set for hard disk)
ES:BX -> data buffer

your hdd must not have Sectors / Cylinder > 63,
your hdd must not have Cylinders / Heads > 1023 (1024?),
your hdd must not have Heads > 255 (256?)

with cyl=1219, it will interpreted having (1219 mod 1024) 195 Cylinders instead.
Lets do the math: 512 * 63 * 195 * 16 / 1024 / 1024 = 95.9765625 MB

so, you might want to creates hdd images with < 1024 cyclinders, but with more heads instead.

-fffuuu

Reply 13 of 19, by wd

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And that will help winME on an arm device in what way? Nice suggestion.

Reply 14 of 19, by Joey_sw

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most likely not, since FAT32 capable OS most likely bypass using INT 13H, and directly accessing L.B.A instead.
A functions that doesn't exist in dosbox. But he probably doesn't know this.

-fffuuu

Reply 15 of 19, by wd

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Oh I'm absolutely sure everything is going through int13 in dosbox. But you probably don't know that.

Reply 16 of 19, by Joey_sw

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i'm totally agree with you WD.

images is nice to have though, just like how almost (all?) PC98 emu's games distributed.

Individual files inside the images less likely affected by outside inteferences such as:
- accidentaly deleted by dubious cleaner programs for 'un-used' extension, or
- accidentaly deleted by OS-reInstallation for being considered as 'harmful' or
- their access locked by FUD Antivirus, etc..

About int13,
some old (low grade) AT computer's controler (WD-1003?) only capable accessing 16 heads, and such reflected in bios that only lower 4 bits of DH register can be used for head selections.
This probably the main cause of rumor saying FDisk can only handle < 512 megabytes hdd.

I think bximage programmer also affected by this 'limitiation'.

Is dosbox also have this limitation?

-fffuuu

Reply 17 of 19, by wd

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The limitations in dosbox are pretty much what int13/2 requires.

Reply 18 of 19, by Joey_sw

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thats good to know, thanks

-fffuuu