DOS Question in Knoppix (resolved)

[Cuddles]

Ok, Ok, you guys have given me the courage here... I'm going to attempt to resize my swap today, probably make the freed up swap space into a DOS/VFAT partition, and try using that. If at all else fails, I can always reclaim it back to Linux later. I will also look at the installation of the 2gig hard drive, if the DOS partition doesn't work...

Thanks everyone
Cuddles

[gowator]

I had a couple of progs I couldn't let go and ran them through vmware.
You can get a 30 day trail license, its pretty expensive 399 I think but great SW. You can install an actual DOS (I can post the images if you like) inside the vmware session.....

rumour has it that the serial no for vmware is at alstalavista.box.sk or somewhere
This will allow you to kick off without rebooting to run the neural nw stuff.

[Cuddles]

I think I did a boo-boo, or something...

Went into CFDisk, through booting from the CD, with a noswap cheatcode...

In cfdisk, I blew away the Linux Swap (2.0 gig)...
***** added a primary partition of 1.7 gig - as type Win9x Fat32 (LBA)
***** added a primary partition of 500 meg - as type Linux Swap

Rebooted back into Knoppix, on the hard drive, and took a look at my DiskFree - no swap, no FAT partition, only my hda1...

Went into MEMORY from within Info Center - no swap, and under PARTITIONS - all I show is hda1...

Decided to see what Linux did find... Shelled out to a Root, and did a dmesg - upon scrolling through my output - I now have a hda1, hda2, and a hda3 - hda1 is my original partition that Knoppix was installed into, hda2 (I think, is my FAT32), and hda3 is now my Linux Swap partition.

Knoppix (used to) thinks my Swap is supposed to be on hda5 -=- but now its hda3 - can this be "repointed" ???

Also, how do I go about getting hda2 into being a formatted DOS ????

( I already read in the man pages for cfdisk, dos 6.x versions require you to do some kind of "dd" command on the partition, to blank out the first 512 bytes, so that DOS Format can handle it, so, I guess I need to do this dd command on my hda2 partition )

SO, my current wish list is:
How do I get my Linux Swap happy again (since the hda3 is now down to 500 meg) ?
How do I get my Win9x FAT32 (LBA) active, and formatted ?

BTW - I have a Win98 Boot Disk, floppy, so I can boot to a Windows 98 DOS prompt, and get format, or fdisk, or sys, or whatever - I also will use the boot floppy to get my DOS program copied off the CD-ROM and onto this hda2 partition, once it is formatted for DOS.

I think, unless I buggered it already, I think I am getting close to completion here
Cuddles

[windos_no_thanks]

How do I get my Linux Swap happy again (since the hda3 is now down to 500 meg) ?

mkswap /dev/hda3

Then edit /etc/fstab (change hda5 to hda3)

How do I get my Win9x FAT32 (LBA) active, and formatted ?

BTW - I have a Win98 Boot Disk, floppy, so I can boot to a Windows 98 DOS prompt, and get format, or fdisk, or sys, or whatever - I also will use the boot floppy to get my DOS program copied off the CD-ROM and onto this hda2 partition, once it is formatted for DOS.

I think, unless I buggered it already, I think I am getting close to completion here
Cuddles

This is probably where M$ will try to bite you again. Windoze is a "jealous" operating system, it wants to be on the first partition... Don't remember how to deal with that, anyone else ?

[Cuddles]

Thanks Windos_No_Thanks - I got the Swap working (and at 500meg) Woooo-hoooooo

One hurdle over...

Now the final one...

I need to get a DOS partition, formatted, with DOS - using a Win98 Boot Disk. I can boot to the floppy and run FORMAT - but I haven't a clue what drive letter it will/would be? Usually a format requires the drive letter after it. ( I do remember a few things still about Windoze/Dos )

I don't need to install windoze, I am just going to get DOS up and running, from the Windoze recovery disk - "Startup Disk" floppy.

I have forgotten so much of Windows/Dos since starting in Linux - I don't think in drive letters anymore - just hda#, hdc#, etc...

Again, I used cfdisk to create the DOS Primary partition on a Linux/Linux Swap hard drive - I need to get the DOS partition into (probably) a Win98 VFAT32 (LBA) format...

I'm gettin close here, I can feel it
Cuddles

[Stephen]

It should be drive C: dos cannot see the other partitions on the drive and do not forget the /s to transfer the system files when you format (format C: /s) and you may need to use dos's fdisk to set the partition as the active one.

[Cuddles]

Stephen, first of all, thanks for the response... Now for the questions....

I shouldn't need to add the system files, I don't want to boot it, I just want to have a "native" DOS partition to use for my "finiky" program. All I want on the partition is a DOS format, and its format structure. My thinking on my DOS program is that it is "somehow" finding something wrong with the files being "translated" or "emulated" from a Linux OS over to DOS, I am hopeing that by setting up a DOS file system for the program, it will run in DosBox, or DOSEmu, etc... In DosBox it just froze at the initialization processing of the program.

Do I need to set the partition to active? I already have my Linux partition set to active, pardon my stupidity, especially if this is a real SIMPLE question, but, what "exactly" does the active do? and worse yet, can you have more than one active on a single hard drive? ( I know, its probably a very simple/stupid question, hey, can ya tell I'm a long standing Windows USER??? (ha ha ha) )

Lastly, drive C: ??? Here is my drive maping, as it stands now:

Primary - Linux partition - active - boot - 39gig
Primary - Win9x FAT32 (LBA) - 1.7+/- gig
Primary - Linux Swap - 500meg

I did go into fdisk, and it shows NON-DOS on the first partition, DOS on second, and NON-DOS on the third.

Considering I used only cfdisk to do all of this, does fdisk need to get involved in this? Will doing a Format C: perform the format ONLY on the DOS (or second) partition? I'd hate to screw up my Linux after all of this work?

Thanks for all the help,
Cuddles

[Stephen]

Dos can only format a dos partition so that should be alright. But now that I am looking at the layout you have, dos/windows only expects one primary and the rest extended partition on the drive you have when installing and using the drive so I do not think it is going to work well if you try to install on a drive with 3 primary partitions. Your probably better off just putting in the spare drive you have as hda move the drive in there to hdb after having installed win98 to the hda boot with Knoppix CD mount the / partition of the knoppix install (sudo mount /dev/hdb? /mnt/hdb?) and edit the lilo.conf to change the root= to be for hdb? leave the boot=/dev/hda and uncomment the example at the bottom of the file for the other OS boot from /dev/hda1 then use sudo chroot /mnt/hdb?/ /sbin/lilo -v to write the lilo to the mbr of the win98 new drive and you will be able to boot both from that lilo screen and you have to change all the /dev/hda? entries in the /etc/fstab on the knoppix drive to /dev/hdb?. Replace the ? with the appropriate partition number(s).

[windos_no_thanks]

Hmm, if it doesn't need to be a bootable filesystem I guess you could try this first:

mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/hda2

[Cuddles]

I got my DOS (finicky) program to run - FINALLY

I tried Wine, hated that I didn't have Windos installed...
I tried DosBox, the program didn't like it...
I tried a second hard drive, with Win98 installed...
***** Wine wouldn't run a DOS program...
***** DosBox, again, the program didn't like it...

THE FINAL SOLVE (to this long standing hatered of a DOS program and Linux)
1) Win98 installed on a second hard drive ( I don't think I had to have it this way, since, I mapped a DOS drive letter through Linux's device mount point)
2) apt-get and install both DosEmu and FreeDos - set up a drive mapping for drive D: to my mount point of my Linux device mounted Win98 hard drive.

AND THE DOS PROGRAM RUNS PERFECTLY

YES, YES, and triple YES -=- Cuddles is doing the "happy dance" all around the room

This thread is finally resolved, and I want to thank everyone, for all the help, and my DOS program thanks you all too

Cuddles