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Old 18th August 2021
bsdun bsdun is offline
Real Name: Steve
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Thumbs up Dos/Obsd69 Hybrid CD

Hello,

I have a couple of machines, where to update BIOS, there either should be a Windows installation, or I have to boot from MS-DOS using the floppy diskette.
Unfortunately I have only 1 working floppy drive left and using it with all the machines is inconvenient.
I decided to make MS-DOS bootable from CD.
To use just 1 CD for all tasks, I decided to make it multuboot MS-DOS and OpenBSD installer.
The multiboot cd has 2 options:
1) Start MS-DOS 98 and drop the user into it's shell (default, timeout 10)
2) Run OpenBSD 6.9 AMD64 installer, same as official cd69.iso
The error message during OpenBSD install
Code:
cannot open cd0a:/etc/random.seed: No such file or directory
is the standard error message related to absence of /etc/random.seed on the CD.
The file is created during shutdown, and since there was no shutdowns, there is no file present. It's one of the entropy feeds used by arc4random(4).
The size of ISO is 13.1 MiB, OpenBSD file sets are installed from official http.

The ISO may be of use to you.
Download the ISO here.
Try it on the virtual machine before burning it to the CD.
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Old 20th August 2021
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IdOp IdOp is offline
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That's interesting, thanks! I burned it to a CD-RW and gave it a spin. Both boot options worked fine. The splash-screen is funny, so I would leave that up a bit longer.

Two questions:

1) If you want to use the DOS option, would that work on a 32-bit machine?

2) The assumption seems to be that you don't have a DOS filesystem or floppy available, so how would you use this to flash a new BIOS? Would you have to "roll-your-own" ISO with the flashing program and ROM update on the DOS part of it?
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Old 20th August 2021
bsdun bsdun is offline
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The splash-screen lasts 4 seconds, but pressing any key will skip it immediately.
It looks funny, but sometimes you have a tight schedule; pressing Enter 2 times on a title screen will drop you right into the DOS shell.
The answers:
1) This is original MS-DOS 98, it will work fine with 32-bit machine.
The OpenBSD part of CD is completely unrelated to the DOS part, of course for it to work on 32-bit machine, the ISO needs to be rebuilt using 32-bit OpenBSD installer.
I can make CD ISO with only MS-DOS 98, that has no title screen and drops you right into MS-DOS shell, or I can make another version of this CD ISO with 32-bit OpenBSD installer.
Tell me if you need it.

2) I usually make an additional 100 MiB FAT partition on all machines' HDDs, MS-DOS 98 can only see FAT, and not the FAT32 or NTFS. BIOS installer files go into the FAT partition on the HDD.
And, as soon as you are in the DOS shell, you no longer need a CD. If it's a "new" machine, Burn BIOS installer files onto CD-RW, and replace the CD when you are in the DOS shell. You have to run findcd command after cd replacement.

Last edited by bsdun; 20th August 2021 at 05:05 PM.
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Old 20th August 2021
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IdOp IdOp is offline
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Thanks for the replies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bsdun View Post
1) This is original MS-DOS 98, it will work fine with 32-bit machine.
The OpenBSD part of CD is completely unrelated to the DOS part, of course for it to work on 32-bit machine, the ISO needs to be rebuilt using 32-bit OpenBSD installer.
I can make CD ISO with only MS-DOS 98, that has no title screen and drops you right into MS-DOS shell, or I can make another version of this CD ISO with 32-bit OpenBSD installer.
Tell me if you need it.
That sounds good. I just hadn't tried booting it on 32-bit. I was vaguely unsure if something prior to DOS was 64-bit, but since the DOS is 32-bit, it really couldn't be a problem.Thanks for the offer, though I don't think I would need another one at this time. Your post just got me thinking about how to do something similar.

Quote:
2) I usually make an additional 100 MiB FAT partition on all machines' HDDs, MS-DOS 98 can only see FAT, and not the FAT32 or NTFS. BIOS installer files go into the FAT partition on the HDD.
And, as soon as you are in the DOS shell, you no longer need a CD. If it's a "new" machine, Burn BIOS installer files onto CD-RW, and replace the CD when you are in the DOS shell. You have to run findcd command after cd replacement.
I see, that's a good idea. It would be nice if the HD FAT partition were bootable, then you could go right from there, but that in itself can be problematical if you don't have a DOS floppy drive to boot from, so I can see why you chose your solution.
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