The continuing saga of Windows 3.1 in enhanced mode on OmniBook 300

[matthiaspaul]

(08-07-2017 11:05 AM)matthiaspaul Wrote:  The same method could be used running the DR-DOS SYS in the MS-DOS emulator under the Windows NT family if the target drive can be "locked" for the emulator by Windows, so that direct disk write access to that volume's boot sector from inside of the emulator becomes possible (this is typically not necessary for drive A: or B: - but I take it that you don't have these drives under Windows any more).

For illustration purposes here come some screenshots of SYS 1.66 running under NT's MS-DOS 5.50 emulator:

Z>set DRSYS=ON (optional to tell SYS you are aware of the fact that you're running it in a foreign environment and want to proceed anyway without having to individually ACK some warnings and extra info screens displayed in this scenario otherwise)
Z>sys /? /[

Code:


SYS [/Help] [drive1:][path] drive2: [/options]

SYS copies the DR-DOS system files from the source drive1:path to the target
drive2:. The target disk must be FAT formatted already. SYS also updates the
Boot Sector, so that the target disk becomes a DR-DOS bootable system disk.
In case no source drive and path is given, SYS will assume the system files to
reside on the drive containing the SYS.COM program. If this is a local drive,
it will try to locate them in the root of this drive, otherwise it will search
for them in the SYS.COM directory itself. SYS tries to use %[DR]COMSPEC% to
locate the Command Processor before searching for it at various other places.

  /A            Additionally copy [D]CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file(s).
  /B or /L      Do not modify the Boot Sector in destination (with LOADER).
  /C            Ignore %[DR]COMSPEC% variable(s) to find Command Processor.
  /CHS or /LBA  Force Boot Sector to use either CHS or LBA INT 13 Extensions.
  /DR[:ext]     Use other file extension for system files (BIN) (with LOADER).
  /E or /#      Force refresh of Serial Number or Time Stamp on target disk.
  /F:path       Alternative way to specify the drive1:path of source files.
  /G            Acoustic reminder of disk change or system transfer complete.
  /J            Additionally copy preloaded on-the-fly disk compression driver.
  /K            Keep original attributes of system files (else set to +RSH).
  /M            Make multiple system diskettes in one go.
  /N            Always preserve Command Processor name (use CONFIG.SYS SHELL).
  /O[:nnn]      Override IPL reported boot drive unit (n=0..126, 128..254).
  /P            Always prompt for insertion of diskettes (batchjob use).
  /R[:password] Password required to read, write or delete the kernel files.
  /S            Skip copying the Command Processor.
  /U            Save Boot Sector & Command Processor (OLDBOOT.BIN/COMMAND.OLD).
  /V            Always verify the integrity of the data written to disk.
  /X            Display verbose messages.            (%YESCHAR%=y, %NOCHAR%=n)
  /Y[:y[n]]     Assume YES on queries & abort on errors, or override YN chars.
  /3 or /5      Name either DRBIOS.SYS/DRBDOS.SYS or IBMBIO.COM/IBMDOS.COM.
  /6            Update GEMDOS Serial Number on target disk (Atari readability).
  /[ or /]      Mute or enforce signon message display (default: OS dependent).

Z>sys z:. a: /X /[

Code:


Reading files from the source disk...
Z:\DOS\DRDOS\DRDOS.707\IBMBIO.COM
Z:\DOS\DRDOS\DRDOS.707\IBMDOS.COM
Z:\DOS\DRDOS\DRDOS.707\COMMAND.COM
Preparing target disk...
Choosing FAT12 CHS Boot Sector (requires IPL to report boot unit).
Treating target as diskette or superfloppy medium (boot drive unit 0).
Writing new Boot Sector...
Writing files to the target disk...
A:\IBMBIO.COM
A:\IBMDOS.COM
A:\COMMAND.COM
Volume in drive A: is unlabeled, File System is FAT.
Volume Serial Number is 130A-091B.

System files copied.

SYS tries to lock the target drive for direct disk access, however, for a program run inside of the DOS emulator this isn't possible in all configurations. If it doesn't work, you'll get an error message like this (assuming X: would be the target drive here):

Code:


Drive X: not ready.
(In order to ensure File System integrity Operating Systems such as the OS/2
or NT families (including Windows 2000, XP and 2003) block direct disk access.
Your Host Operating System may provide configuration options to temporarily
lock the drive for exclusive use by SYS running in the DOS emulator, otherwise
you may need to first boot DR-DOS in order to run SYS. In many cases SYS should
still be able to access removable drives such as floppy drive A: or B: in order
to create a DR-DOS bootable disk. In case the disk has already been bootable
under a prior issue of DR-DOS and you want to update the DR-DOS files on disk,
use SYS /B to not update the Boot Sector.)

Sometimes write access to the boot sector is blocked even if a drive is locked, for example when using certain resident virus scanners. Therefore SYS will first attempt to read the boot sector and when a DR-DOS compatible boot sector is found on the target already, it will only update the kernel files and skip writing a new boot sector:

Code:


Required Boot Sector already found on target disk, no need to write new one.

As illustrated further above this method could be adapted to run the DR-DOS SYS 1.66 under MS-DOS 6.2x on the OB300. Write access to the boot sector should be possible for SYS on all logical drives, even without any need to "lock" the drive first (MS-DOS 6.x does not support this, anyway).

Greetings,

Matthias