Re: Booting other OS

[Radek Svaqr <ignor@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Stewart,

Monday, February 07, 2000, 6:15:18 AM, you wrote:

SM> I verified that you can boot from an SRAM card in a: drive by doing a
SM> sys a: and adding some comments to an autoexec.bat I put in there as
SM> well.

PC3k can also boot from B: D: and E:. On D: there is space for IO.SYS
and MSDOS.SYS only but PC3k's will read COMMAND.COM from C:. Very
flexible isnt't it?



SM> Next, I put a DOS 5 boot disk in my parallel floppy drive and did a sys
SM> a: to transfer the DOS 5 system files to the same SRAM card.  But when I
SM> re-booted, I received a non-system disk error for the a: drive.  I'm
SM> guessing it's because I formatted a: under DOS 3.3.  So, I need to find

Try the same thing on your floppy: Format it with 3.3 and then Sys 5.0
to it. Then try to boot it on PC. This experiment can say something.

And If you will be doing it please try to sys 3.3 and boot the PC as
well. I would like to know the result.


SM> a laptop with a PCMCIA port, boot undeer DOS 5, then format the SRAM
SM> card, transfer the system to it, and put it back in the PC3k.  Has
SM> anyone else tried this yet?

I think somebody has tried it (unsuccesfully) It is somewhere on Internet.
It is IMHO because I don't remember where I've seen it.
The biggest problem on PC3k is that Format.com from stanard DOS 5.0
is not able to format SRAM Cards. I was playing with it for a long time.
The solution may be to format SRAM with higher DOS version. This is
the only think I didn't because haven't got laptop or correct Format
program.. I was trying to transer various DOSes to SRAM formated with
PC3k's DOS.

Has anyone HP200LX? This is best solution to format SRAM and transfer
DOS 5 to it. And also it is sure that its DOS 5.0 is _ABLE_ to work
with PCMCIA SRAM Cards (especially format them)
(Or Olivetti Quaderno? It has also DOS 5.0 in ROM, and PCMCIA II)

BTW: Another strange thing. If you sys to E: than delete system files
and reboot, PC3k will write: "Not a boot disk" Seems that boot sector
must be wipped at all.


SM> Has anyone wired up a conventional floppy to the PC3k bus port?  Radek,
SM> this is right up your alley.  Have you done it?

Uh. I was trying MFM harddrive. As I've written before there was some
problem with activation of PC3k's ISA connector. When I'll have time I can
try 8 or 16 bit floppy controller but I'm sceptic. The best chance is Eric
Lindsay. I was thinking about hooking the necesary signals directly to
motherboard, but I need schematics for it.


SM> Or, does anyone have a real Sharp floppy (Eric Lindsay?) and if so, have
SM> you tried booting another version of DOS from it?  It's critical that we
SM> know if this can be done. If it can be done, then there's the
SM> possibility to use that boot floppy as a way to install another OS on
SM> the Sharp.

SM> Loadlin can be used to boot Linux from DOS, but Linux still needs to be
SM> able to recognize, and format SRAM and flashRAM cards.


SM> cheers,
SM> --
SM> Stewart Midwinter
SM> midtoad at home.com (alternate: midtoad at iprimus.ca)
SM> Visit http://midtoad.web.com




Best regards,
 Radek                            mailto:ignor@xxxxxxxxxx