how to make a bootable DOS hard drive?

hat · Apr 13, 2009, 07:26 AM

I just threw my old 120gb ide hard drive in my computer and I plan on setting up a 32mb partition on it for BIOS flashing. Our very own guide here only says something about "add text here on how to make a bootable DOS partition".

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...g/vidcard/34/6

alexp999 · Apr 13, 2009, 10:27 AM

The easiest way I would have thought, is to make the partition, then prepare it like a USB drive for booting (See link in my sig)

Then all you have to do, is tell the BIOS which HDD to boot from when you want to flash the BIOS

hat · Apr 13, 2009, 11:01 AM

Tried that, unfortounately it only sees usb drives. That's exactly the meathod I use to make my usb drives bootable, doesn't work on hdds.

DanTheBanjoman · Apr 13, 2009, 11:05 AM

Boot from a DOS CD/diskette/USb disk, format the 32MB partition as FAT16 and use sys.com to transfer system files to the harddrive. (sys source destination)

hat · Apr 13, 2009, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanTheBanjoman

Boot from a DOS CD/diskette/USb disk, format the 32MB partition as FAT16 and use sys.com to transfer system files to the harddrive. (sys source destination)

what commands do I need to do that then?
meh, when I go into my bios, it only recgonizes the hard drive as one whole hard drive, it doesn't see the seperate partitions. What now?

how does the computer choose which partition to boot from?

DanTheBanjoman · Apr 13, 2009, 12:09 PM

The BIOS has nothing to do with partitions. The MBR decides what partition boots. Hence you need to utilize some boot loader. Like the NT one.

hat · Apr 13, 2009, 12:24 PM

I still have no idea what you are talking about...

hat · Apr 14, 2009, 03:57 AM

DanTheBanjoman · Apr 14, 2009, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hat

I still have no idea what you are talking about...

Considering the fact that you seem to know nothing about partitioning and making bootable drives I'm pretty sure it's a better idea to just make some USB stick bootable.

If you want I can make a Ghost of a clean bootable USB stick, saves quite some time.

hat · Apr 14, 2009, 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanTheBanjoman

Considering the fact that you seem to know nothing about partitioning and making bootable drives I'm pretty sure it's a better idea to just make some USB stick bootable.

If you want I can make a Ghost of a clean bootable USB stick, saves quite some time.

That's the whole point of this thread, I'm trying to find out how to make my partition bootable. I have used the USB stick meathod in the past with my DFI board. That board saw it as a hard drive (c

, but this board sees it as a floppy drive (a

and nvflash doesn't work properly when the drive is seen as an a: drive so I need to make a bootable partition.

alexp999 · Apr 14, 2009, 08:46 AM

Do you want an option added to the XP bootloader? Or just be able to select the HDD to boot from in the BIOS when you want to use it?

DanTheBanjoman · Apr 14, 2009, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hat

That's the whole point of this thread, I'm trying to find out how to make my partition bootable. I have used the USB stick meathod in the past with my DFI board. That board saw it as a hard drive (c

, but this board sees it as a floppy drive (a

and nvflash doesn't work properly when the drive is seen as an a: drive so I need to make a bootable partition.

Why wouldn't nvflash work from A:? If there is some vague reason you could just make a bootable CD and access the USB stick from there? Dos 7.10 bootdisks are great.

alexp999 · Apr 14, 2009, 08:58 AM

It could be that when seen as a, it is under floppy emulation, in which case the total size of files, nvflash and the bios could exceed 1.44mb.

I still dont really know why a partition is so important, when I want to flash I just put in my USB drive, reboot, hit F8 and tell the bios to boot from my USB, job done.

DanTheBanjoman · Apr 14, 2009, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexp999

It could be that when seen as a, it is under floppy emulation, in which case the total size of files, nvflash and the bios could exceed 1.44mb.

I still dont really know why a partition is so important, when I want to flash I just put in my USB drive, reboot, hit F8 and tell the bios to boot from my USB, job done.

Floppy emulation isn't limited to 1.44MB. Official sizes go up to at least 120MB (LS-120). I don't see why it can't be more.

hat · Apr 14, 2009, 09:08 AM

because when I ran off my usb drive (seen as a

and tried to run nvflash, it said it couldn't find c:\cwsdpmi.exe, which is a file that comes with nvflash amd could make you run into trouble if it's not there

DanTheBanjoman · Apr 14, 2009, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hat

because when I ran off my usb drive (seen as a

and tried to run nvflash, it said it couldn't find c:\cwsdpmi.exe, which is a file that comes with nvflash amd could make you run into trouble if it's not there

Let me guess, you ran a batchfile? Edit the batchfile, remove pointers to specific drives. (change to \cwsdpmi.exe) Or if there is some other mystical thing pointing to C: which you can't edit, use subst.

hat · Apr 14, 2009, 10:24 AM

No, no batchfile. Just a bunch of files on a bootable usb drive.

DanTheBanjoman · Apr 14, 2009, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hat

No, no batchfile. Just a bunch of files on a bootable usb drive.

Open config.sys and autoexec.bat in notepad.

hat · Apr 15, 2009, 02:12 AM

aha, never mind. I found a neat little setting buried in the SUPER I/O options that allows me to select different types of emulation for usb sticks... and hard drive was one of them. this allows me to operate my bootable floppy as per usual just like my old DFI board. thanks anyway for your attempts to help me, I'm just not oldschool enough to understand what the hell you're talking about

Wile E · Apr 15, 2009, 04:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hat

aha, never mind. I found a neat little setting buried in the SUPER I/O options that allows me to select different types of emulation for usb sticks... and hard drive was one of them. this allows me to operate my bootable floppy as per usual just like my old DFI board. thanks anyway for your attempts to help me, I'm just not oldschool enough to understand what the hell you're talking about

lol. You may not be able to understand the old school stuff, but a bootloader is that thing that pops up when you have multiple OSes that lets you select the one to boot into. AKA: That list that lets you pick from Vista or XP, for instance. Just a fyi.

Apr 13, 2009, 07:26 AM	#1
hat Maximum Overclocker Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Ohio Posts: 12,236 (5.15/day) Thanks: 2,054 Thanked 2,039 Times in 1,549 Posts System Specs	how to make a bootable DOS hard drive? I just threw my old 120gb ide hard drive in my computer and I plan on setting up a 32mb partition on it for BIOS flashing. Our very own guide here only says something about "add text here on how to make a bootable DOS partition". http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...g/vidcard/34/6 __________________ My Heatware “Inb4 smartphone LN2 overclocking.” -radrok

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Apr 13, 2009, 10:27 AM	#2
alexp999 Staff Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dorset, UK Posts: 6,728 (3.17/day) Thanks: 684 Thanked 915 Times in 783 Posts System Specs	The easiest way I would have thought, is to make the partition, then prepare it like a USB drive for booting (See link in my sig) Then all you have to do, is tell the BIOS which HDD to boot from when you want to flash the BIOS __________________ ASUS P45 Club [FS] [WTB] Heatware ebay Elite Lounge USB Boot Guide 3DMark Vantage My Rig XBOX Gamertag Steam ID Dad's: EVGA 750i FTW, E6600, F7Pro, 4GB, 8800GTS 640MB SLi, SST 750W, Commodore EVE Gallente Case

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Apr 13, 2009, 11:01 AM	#3
hat Maximum Overclocker Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Ohio Posts: 12,236 (5.15/day) Thanks: 2,054 Thanked 2,039 Times in 1,549 Posts System Specs	Tried that, unfortounately it only sees usb drives. That's exactly the meathod I use to make my usb drives bootable, doesn't work on hdds. __________________ My Heatware “Inb4 smartphone LN2 overclocking.” -radrok

Apr 13, 2009, 11:05 AM	#4
DanTheBanjoman Señor Moderator Join Date: May 2004 Location: Utrecht, Utrecht, The kingdom of the Netherlands Posts: 8,498 (2.58/day) Thanks: 41 Thanked 1,453 Times in 1,077 Posts System Specs	Boot from a DOS CD/diskette/USb disk, format the 32MB partition as FAT16 and use sys.com to transfer system files to the harddrive. (sys source destination)

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Apr 13, 2009, 12:09 PM	#6
DanTheBanjoman Señor Moderator Join Date: May 2004 Location: Utrecht, Utrecht, The kingdom of the Netherlands Posts: 8,498 (2.58/day) Thanks: 41 Thanked 1,453 Times in 1,077 Posts System Specs	The BIOS has nothing to do with partitions. The MBR decides what partition boots. Hence you need to utilize some boot loader. Like the NT one.

Apr 13, 2009, 12:24 PM	#7
hat Maximum Overclocker Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Ohio Posts: 12,236 (5.15/day) Thanks: 2,054 Thanked 2,039 Times in 1,549 Posts System Specs	I still have no idea what you are talking about... __________________ My Heatware “Inb4 smartphone LN2 overclocking.” -radrok

Apr 14, 2009, 03:57 AM	#8
hat Maximum Overclocker Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Ohio Posts: 12,236 (5.15/day) Thanks: 2,054 Thanked 2,039 Times in 1,549 Posts System Specs	__________________ My Heatware “Inb4 smartphone LN2 overclocking.” -radrok

Apr 14, 2009, 08:46 AM	#11
alexp999 Staff Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dorset, UK Posts: 6,728 (3.17/day) Thanks: 684 Thanked 915 Times in 783 Posts System Specs	Do you want an option added to the XP bootloader? Or just be able to select the HDD to boot from in the BIOS when you want to use it? __________________ ASUS P45 Club [FS] [WTB] Heatware ebay Elite Lounge USB Boot Guide 3DMark Vantage My Rig XBOX Gamertag Steam ID Dad's: EVGA 750i FTW, E6600, F7Pro, 4GB, 8800GTS 640MB SLi, SST 750W, Commodore EVE Gallente Case

Apr 14, 2009, 08:58 AM	#13
alexp999 Staff Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dorset, UK Posts: 6,728 (3.17/day) Thanks: 684 Thanked 915 Times in 783 Posts System Specs	It could be that when seen as a, it is under floppy emulation, in which case the total size of files, nvflash and the bios could exceed 1.44mb. I still dont really know why a partition is so important, when I want to flash I just put in my USB drive, reboot, hit F8 and tell the bios to boot from my USB, job done. __________________ ASUS P45 Club [FS] [WTB] Heatware ebay Elite Lounge USB Boot Guide 3DMark Vantage My Rig XBOX Gamertag Steam ID Dad's: EVGA 750i FTW, E6600, F7Pro, 4GB, 8800GTS 640MB SLi, SST 750W, Commodore EVE Gallente Case

Apr 14, 2009, 09:08 AM	#15
hat Maximum Overclocker Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Ohio Posts: 12,236 (5.15/day) Thanks: 2,054 Thanked 2,039 Times in 1,549 Posts System Specs	because when I ran off my usb drive (seen as a and tried to run nvflash, it said it couldn't find c:\cwsdpmi.exe, which is a file that comes with nvflash amd could make you run into trouble if it's not there __________________ My Heatware “Inb4 smartphone LN2 overclocking.” -radrok

Apr 14, 2009, 10:24 AM	#17
hat Maximum Overclocker Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Ohio Posts: 12,236 (5.15/day) Thanks: 2,054 Thanked 2,039 Times in 1,549 Posts System Specs	No, no batchfile. Just a bunch of files on a bootable usb drive. __________________ My Heatware “Inb4 smartphone LN2 overclocking.” -radrok

Apr 15, 2009, 02:12 AM	#19
hat Maximum Overclocker Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Ohio Posts: 12,236 (5.15/day) Thanks: 2,054 Thanked 2,039 Times in 1,549 Posts System Specs	aha, never mind. I found a neat little setting buried in the SUPER I/O options that allows me to select different types of emulation for usb sticks... and hard drive was one of them. this allows me to operate my bootable floppy as per usual just like my old DFI board. thanks anyway for your attempts to help me, I'm just not oldschool enough to understand what the hell you're talking about __________________ My Heatware “Inb4 smartphone LN2 overclocking.” -radrok

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