But I cannot copy anything to the drive c:\

Copying how?

Btw. iso/cue loading is for cdroms, thus write protected disks.
Image files are hard disk/floppy images, thus writeable.

In general you do this: create a bootable image as described elsewhere,
create another image where you put the win3x installation files to
(this one does only have to be mounted during installation), then in
dosbox imgmount both images (c and d) and boot into msdos. Then
install win3x onto c:

Ehm, by using the "copy" command ...

As I already said, I did exactly what you are telling me. I also told u that I created a harddrive image file (which I then mounted as C:, hence, I SHOULD be able to copy files there). After I have "injected" the folders WINDOWS, WINWORD (since I installed Windows 3.11 and winword, BEFOREHAND into a mounte folder) and the files config.sys and autoexec.bat (which was unneccessary I think), I mounted the image file as drive c:\ ... I HAD TO DO THIS, since I was unable to install WIndows 3.11 to the image after I freshly formatted it because the setup told me (just as I explained in other cases already), that it was unable to write the file(s) to drive c:\ because the file is write-protected (AGAIN: a non-existent file is WRITE-PROTECTED, according to WIndows setup, Windows' file manager and various other apps!).

ehm, maybe I should tell u what exactly I have done:

1. I made a harddrive image, fdisk'ed and formatted it like in the guide which is in the guides section (link in my first post)

2. I put together all the files of windows 3.11 setup into one folder for easier handling and mounted this folder as drive a: (later as drive d:, doesn'T matter I suppose)

3. Of course the harddrive image was formatted and empty and I tested it by copying one single file from a randomly mounted folder (mounted as drive d:\ or e:\) to drive c:\ ... it WORKED!

4. I started Windows 3.11 setup and selected Express setup. The setup tried to copy the FIRST file and gave the error that the file is write protected and therefore the setup has to abort! (AGAIN: A NON-EXISTENT FILE SHOULD BE WRITE-PROTECTED!!!!!)

5. setup aborts and I am back in DOS/DOSBOX. I (just for fun) type DIR and a fodler called WIndows is on C:\, I open it and find that the file (WHICH WAS CLAIMED TO BE WRITE-PROTECTED) doesn't exist.

6. I repeatedly tried to install windows, it didn't work .. same error ...

7. THEN, some guy on ps2dev.org told me to install windows by NOT mounting my harddrive image but by mounting a folder (which one doesn'T matter) as c:\ and let windows setup install to that.

8. I did it and it worked (of course). Now I had the files of Windows 3.11 in that folder (i.e. a subfolder WINDOWS plus config.sys and autoexec.bat).

9. I used WinImage to inject the WINDOWS folder and the two files into my harddrive image. This worked of course. I saved it and now I had windows installed into/onto my harddrive image which I now could mount as drive c:\ in Dosbox.

10. But THEN I was unable to copy anything from inside windows 3.11 since it gave me the same dumb error as the setup before. Even the setup of Winword 6.0 and Aimpro and Excel told me they cannot write files because the files "WOULD" already exist and would be write-protected ... BUT THIS IS F*CKING IMPOSSIBLE, SINCE THESE APPS HAVE NEVER BEEN INSTALLED!!!! It is just the wrong message to the error.

11. I am absolutely clueless how I could "convince" Dos or Dosbox or WIndows 3.11 to write to this freakin harddrive image.

[EDIT]: Just to emphasize this once again:

I am able to copy single files from another "virtual drive" (a fodler mounted as drive d:\, for example) to drive c:\ in DOS command prompt by using the "copy" command. I can also create folders with the MD command of Dosbox.

But I cannot:

1. Copy entire folders to drive c:\ with the copy command in Dosbox; It successfully created the folder on drive c:\, copied the files to it, but fails to create subfolders and files in the subfolders and gives out some silly error messages (which I cannot remember atm.)

2. copy anything to drive c:\ in Windows 3.11 using the file manager

3. install any applications in windows

4. save any files in windows applications to drive c:\

5. save changed windows settings (e.g. if I had changed the arrangement of the windows)

4. I started Windows 3.11 setup and selected Express setup.

Sounds like you didn't BOOT the image, right? See my last posting.

well ... what do u meen with BOOT the image?!

I used imgmount to mount it.

Do u mean the BOOT command like when booting the floppy image, before I fdisk and format the drive?

Then, what should my command line look like?

BOOT ...?!

If you img'mounted a c: -image with dos on it, use "boot -l c"

JUst tried this. It worked ... but then I can't mount any other folders as other drives, like d:\

I just tried once again.

I just created a new image file (70 MB) ... fdisk'ed and formatted and mounted with imgmount. Then I used the command u just proposed:

mount d l:\dos\wininst
imgmount c L:\dos\c2.img -size 512,63,16,142 -fs fat
boot -l c

so, eventhoug dosbox successfully mounted the folder WININST as drive d:\, after the boot sequence, I get the nice message "invalid drive specification" ...

I think that is a "feature" of DOSBox. Once you boot into unknown territory, you are restricted to the boot volume. Call it a security feature 😀

🤣 okay ... well, then ... whatever it is ... it prevents me from installing windows 3.11 😀

Can u tel me how to install it, then?

And another thing ...

I mean when I fdisk and format the drive and NOT boot it, I still can mount it. But why do I get those stupid errors?! I doubt I have to BOOT a harddrive image to use it, do I? And if I really have to, PLEASE ... tell me WHY?!

[EDIT]: Okay, I just tried to mount an ISO file as a virtual CD drive as drive d:\, instead of the folder. NOTHING!

I am entirely clueless ... 🙁

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php? … Programs%2FBoot

Important Note

After using the BOOT command you can only access the series of disk images you specified on the command line (diskimg1.img diskimg2.img, etc.) and/or the alternative boot image (definded by imgmount) specified with the "-l driveletter" option. You can not access any previous DOSBox drives!

So basically, it's really "boot bootable.img notbootable1.img notbootable2.img etc."

I guess it means that you have to turn your l:\dos\wininst into an image.

hmm, as I said, I tried to mount the ISO. From what I have briefly read in the link you gave me, this won't work.

But can u tell me what my [qutoexec] section should look like if I want to mount two drives from images? and how do I get the content of the folder into the image then? Again with winimage? this sux entirely and I think this is not the way this was meant to work, or do those coders realy think that weird?

G2G now, any help is highly appreciated ... gonna look at it tomorrow

ISOs don't work, fake drives don't work.
As you still didn't read my earlier posts i'll repeat it: create a bootable c-image,
create an empty d-image and copy the win3x installation files onto it,
imgmount both images, boot the c-drive, install.

you can put the install files on the c image too.

More flexible and safe is using two images, as you don't have to copy
from a local drive to an imgmounted drive then.

Well ...

I actually HAVE read your post ...

But how shall I get the setup files onto that new drive? with winimage?!

Never used winimage, if that works, fine. Otherwise use imgmount
with the -fs fat parameter as you already did (but only for copying files).

or use Disk Explorer, mentioned in the image guide Sample usage of a harddisc image in DOSBOX

Sorry, hardly had any time left to try this in the last few days. But I'll try it now and see whether it works. But it is not exactly what I tried to do, since I now have to load "real" DOS, but I wanted to keep using Dosbox. Isn't there any way to stay with Dosbox and still use a hard drive image?

Well disk image support has been implemented by canadacow with real
DOS in mind. Mounting them along with the dosbox-internal DOS is only
usable as far as file copying, not cheating around some OS limitations
(5 open files).
If you have any serious use for win3x on your psp, you should use the
booting way and transfer files to/from the image using imgmount or some
external tools. This should provide the best compatibility anyways.

Just tried it and it worked. As I said, itis not "really" what I wanted, because I now cannot use ISOs anymore and there are other minor limitations 🙁

The real problem is that I am planning to use this with Dosbox 4 PSP ... and unfortunately, (at least my) PSP doesn't have a "physical" CD-ROM drive 😁

Therefore, I need to use ISOs to run my apps/games. Is it possible to somehow use images of CDs under DOS?