First post, by mike_canada
I have a dell wyse mini thin client with a 128MB flash drive which I can setup dos on, but most of the time I want it to use it as a specialized hide-away server because it interacts with my custom hardware which connects to that computer through a serial port. Yes, I'm a tech at that.
Now in order for the serial port to be of use, the drive needs to have DOS on it with custom software I built for it. All software and such is taken care of, but I need help with the automation because I won't be always connecting a monitor or keyboard to the thin client, but I will carry my external usb CD drive which I can use to boot the system.
What I have trouble with the most is being able to partition and format the flash drive with the most automation possible in DOS 6.22.
The closest I got with partitioning the drive automated is this command:
fdisk 1 /pri:999
fdisk /status
That allows me to make a partition of the maximum size despite 999 (MB) exceeding the drive space but I don't know if its correct But I don't want to execute fdisk if the drive exists but dos reports a media error when I do something with the drive (like a dos dir for instance)
The closest I got with formatting the drive automated is this command:
format c:/u/s
But that command still has format ask me if I want to continue.
I have also tried the /y switch suggested on some forums and the format command didn't like it.
Somehow I gotta get those two commands automated so that if the system breaks down, then all I need in order to recover the system is just the boot CD in the external CD drive connected to the dell thin client. I don't want to have to carry a keyboard or monitor and attach them both to the unit every time I want to repair it.
And for people wondering what else this machine will do? It will act as an HTTP server so I can access pages from any remote computer.
Any ideas how I can automate the DOS FDISK and FORMAT commands so that an unformatted and unpartitioned drive is automatically setup so maximum space is available and accessible in DOS?