FreeDOS hangs

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JL · #1 Post by JL » Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:06 am

Whenever I try to launch a program that require FreeDOS, the computer always hangs at the step where it tries to unpack the file NTFS.CAB. I have tried all boot alternatives 1-4, with no success. Any suggestions how to resolve this?

BTW: I am making use of Smart Boot Manager to enable booting from CD, as my BIOS does not allow this by default.

DanceMan · #2 Post by **DanceMan** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 2:20 pm

I'm having a similar problem. Any program requiring FreeDOS goes through a long boot process and leaves me with a Q:> prompt, which doesn't respond. This is on a Thinkpad with an apparently nfg floppy drive, a working hdd, and the cdrom from which I'm running UBCD. If I try Q:> aida, which is the command when I run Aida16 from a floppy, after booting in DOS, I get a "bad command or filename" error msg.

#3 Post by **Victor Chew** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:56 am

You should be running "t:\dosapps\aida16\startup.bat"

T:\ is the CDROM drive letter, and the rest is the path to the batch
file that starts up AIDA16.

But that still doesn't explain why it didn't start AIDA in the first
place. How about other apps, like Lucifer or F-Prot etc.?

DanceMan · #4 Post by **DanceMan** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 9:32 am

As I said in my post, any application requiring FreeDos had exactly the same result. I went through quite a few looking for ones that would work, hardware reporting and partitioning apps. Only the ones running on linux worked.
I haven't tried in other machinery yet, just in that one IBM 390E notebook.
By the way, I'm a longtime user of the Ultimate Boot Disk floppy. Thanks for all the work you've done over the years on these tools.

DanceMan · #5 Post by **DanceMan** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:46 am

Just tried:

Q:\>dosapps\aida16\startup.bat

and got "Bad command or filename."
A lot of command lines run by in Freedos, many of them, and the last bunch, reading, "UNPACK: Cannot find file "A:\ level 1\ some filename"

#6 Post by **Victor Chew** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 7:20 pm

Did you miss the T:\ in front?

Try doing it step by step:

- t:
- cd \dosapps
- cd aida16
- startup.bat

DanceMan · #7 Post by **DanceMan** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:05 pm

I think I already tried T:
But I tried it again, and the error msg is: "Invalid drive T:."

I assumed that Q was the cdrom on this machine.

#8 Post by **Victor Chew** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 8:09 pm

No Q: is the ram drive. T: is the CDROM drive.

Seems like FreeDOS did not mount your CDROM drive properly. Do you see
any drive-mounting related error messages during booting of FreeDOS?

DanceMan · #9 Post by **DanceMan** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:38 pm

It mounts the A: drive (which doesn't work). I can get to the A: prompt.

from the text that scrolls by:
IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM Device Driver etc.
CDROM drive #0 found on 170h port master device, v1E17

CDROM: Could not find "A:\lib\shsucdx.cab or A:\lib\mscdx.cab
CDROM: Aborted...

Then it proceeds to a series of "UNPACK:"

Apologies for not trying the disk yet on a desktop.

#10 Post by **Administrator** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 7:19 pm

That's the reason! Your CDROM drive is not mounted at all.

But what puzzles me is that A:\lib\shsucdx.cab should be available. If you have WinImage or VFD, could you check \images\freedos.img and verify that \lib\shsucdx.cab can be found within the image?

Also, you can try typing "cdrom" at the FreeDOS command prompt to manually mount the CDROM drive.

DanceMan · #11 Post by **DanceMan** » Wed Jun 15, 2005 3:50 pm

I'll try your suggestions. In the meantime, I can report that the disk functions correctly in my primary desktop. No problem at all in getting directly to Aida16, which uses FreeDOS.

beel1 · #12 Post by **beel1** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 12:32 pm

Hello,

I've also a problem when running any application using FreeDOS : my computer just reboots a few after letting me select a keyboard, in any mode (UMBPCI and so on).

So I decided to confirm each line during startup of FreeDOS (using F8 option) to investigate.
I've almost gone crazy

, but I finally found out that the command "dready a: /W" after label "_drd4" makes my computer reboot

Any clue to help me ? I've already made a search in this forum on the word "dready", and I found nothing...

My computer is i865-based with a P4C. Mainboard is an Abit IS7-E.

DanceMan · #13 Post by **DanceMan** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 1:57 pm

Have not been able to try mounting the cdrom manually. The laptop that was the subject of my post is very much a work in progress, lacking a functioning hard drive caddy. Since upgrading the cpu and swapping the fdd, the cdrom is currently not being recognised.

#14 Post by **Victor Chew** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:43 am

I suggest if you are having problems with FreeDOS on your system, the
best bet is to add your own DOS disk which does boot (and mount the
CDROM drive). Once that works, cd to the app directory (eg.
x:\dosapps\aida16), and just type "startup.bat" to launch that app.

I am beginning to suspect it's just too darn hard to have something as
complicated as the FreeDOS boot disk to boot on every hardware out
there. Remember, it tries to do a lot of stuff like mounting USB devices
and so on.