How to multiboot from USB PenDrive

[ADFC]

Hello!

Is there a way I can compress those dos.img files?

Because program2.exe has 200MB (it was running through pendrive, not floppy).
But if I make an image of the entire pendrive, the dos2.img will have 1GB (which is my pendrive's total memory capacity)!!

Is there a way to solve this?

PS: I don't have floppy drives in my laptop

Thank you
ADFC

[vonbiber]

ok, the first program could fit on a floppy, right?
If you don't have a floppy drive, you can
1. download a floppy image (dos622 or windows98se)
you can try this site: MS-DOS Boot Disk Download | AllBootDisks - Providing Free Boot Disks from MS-DOS to Windows XP.
2. mount the image and place your program in it
do this as root (and you might want to do that on a copy of the downloaded file):
cp dos.6.22.img dos1.img
mkdir -p /mnt/floppy
mount -o dos1.img /mnt/floppy
cp program1.exe /mnt/floppy
umount /mnt/floppy
3. place the resulting dos1.img on your (mounted usb drive)

As for the other program, the floppy image solution is not possible
You could create a bootable iso image with mkisofs
but there's no guarantee
that memdisk would be able to completely boot the iso

you might try this forum as they deal a lot with dos/windows
Boot Land

good luck

[ADFC]

OK, I'll try your suggestions

Thank you once more for your help!

[ADFC]

Hello!

I tried your suggestions, but I still have some problems.

I can't seem to boot from the image files I downloaded from Bootdisk.Com

I have a 622c.img file and a winme.img file.

622c.img stops at: Loading MS-DOS...
winme.img stops at: Starting Boot... (or something... sorry can't remember).

Here is my syslinux.cfg file:


PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 30
DEFAULT /boot/vesamenu.c32
MENU BACKGROUND /boot/splash.png
.
.
.
.
.
.
LABEL DOS
MENU LABEL Boot into DOS
KERNEL /boot/memdisk
APPEND initrd=/boot/images/winme.img
TEXT HELP

Help:

Loads MS-DOS.
ENDTEXT


__________________________________________________ ____________

The files I have in the pendrive are:

boot:
total 3152
drwxr-xr-x 2 ADFC root 4096 2009-07-13 00:41 images
drwxr-xr-x 2 ADFC root 4096 2009-07-13 00:43 syslinux
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ADFC root 2643405 2009-04-13 11:43 initrd.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ADFC root 19584 2009-06-09 18:20 memdisk
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ADFC root 408760 2009-06-14 19:33 splash.png
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ADFC root 140580 2009-04-13 11:43 vesamenu.c32

boot/images:
total 2880
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ADFC root 1474560 2004-03-25 12:04 622c.img
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ADFC root 1474560 2004-03-26 08:09 winme.img

boot/syslinux:
total 24
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ADFC root 14918 2009-06-20 20:45 ldlinux.sys
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ADFC root 1884 2009-07-13 00:43 syslinux.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ADFC root 1884 2009-07-13 00:42 syslinux.cfg~


What am I doing wrong, and why can't I boot from any dos image using memdisk?
Did I forget to include some file in the pendrive or something?


Thank you
ADFC

[vonbiber]

I haven't tried those. I do know that the freedos image I have
(it's a compressed image called balder10.imz) does boot.

Have you tried the ones that don't use a ram file (try to download
either dos622 or 98se without RAM)?
here's the direct link to 98se without RAMdrive:
http://www.allbootdisks.com/download...o_Ramdrive.img

[ADFC]

I haven't tried those. I do know that the freedos image I have
(it's a compressed image called balder10.imz) does boot.

Have you tried the ones that don't use a ram file (try to download
either dos622 or 98se without RAM)?
here's the direct link to 98se without RAMdrive:
http://www.allbootdisks.com/download...o_Ramdrive.img

Hello vonbiber.

I tried your image (W98 without RAMDrive).
Same thing.

It's strange.

I have also tried in a different laptop and I got the same errors.

I now think that I am doing something wrong, or that there is some compatibility issue between syslinux and my BIOS.

Still investigating.
If you vonbiber (or anyone in the form), have more suggestions please don't hesitate to share them.

It's just that I don't give up that easy.

Thank you
ADFC