Installing SR6.1 to harddrive

[J.D. Gallaway]

I have a (new to me) Lenovo ThinkCentre M715... It's a full computer in a thin-client package.

As I got this cheap, and have a another system that is my current daily driver, I want to turn this unit into a dual-boot Android/spinrite station. It has onboard m.2 and SATA connections. I've got a 128gb nvme drive in the m.2 slot, and I ordered a 10in SATA power & data extension cable. I plan to slice a slot in the top of the shell with my Dremel and have the data connectors on top to make swapping drives more practical.

Anyways, I have FreeDOS installed and booting, and I have a working SpinRite thumb drive that boots and functions no problems. If I boot off the m.2 stick and try to run spinrite manually from the thumb drive (which is automatically enumerated by bios) I get an error message, basically referencing Steve's memory manager customizations.

Unfortunately it's been WAY too long since I was tinkering in the guts of my old Emerson Electronics 286, 12mhz system to remember all the old dos tricks.

So I can try to hack the two autoexec.bat's and config.sys's together until I get it to work/give up. Or can I beg someone's assistance in figuring out a way to just install Spinrite into a harddrive from the thumb drive. One problem I found is that if I boot to the spinrite USB stick, the m.2 is not enumerated by a drive letter that I can find.

Any thoughts?

 

[PHolder]

My days of DOS use are long in the past, but I remember there being a DOS command SYS which would install the operating system on a disk. I don't presume the version of DOS is built into the SYS command, so it must copy it from the boot sector and the COMMAND.COM executable on the booted OS. So what would happen if you copied the SYS command from your M.2 to the SpinRite USB and then booted of the SpinRite USB and ran SYS and pointed it at the M.2 drive?

 

[Scott]

So what would happen if you copied the SYS command from your M.2 to the SpinRite USB and then booted of the SpinRite USB and ran SYS and pointed it at the M.2 drive?

@PHolder , @J.D. Gallaway would first have to use fdisk to partition the disk as MBR and format to FAT16.

Another possibility-use the FreeDOS 1.3 standard USB installer and create a standard FreeDOS system, then just copy SpinRite to it. Steve’s modifications to freedos were to help with drive discovery, but I’ve never had a problem running SR on standard FreeDOS

 

[peterblaise]

Do you have a USB adapter for your M.2 drive?

If not, get an adapter.

Move the M.2 drive from internal to USB, then let SpinRite on any computer prepare it as a SpinRite boot drive.

Then move the M.2 drive internal back internal to boot it if that is what you are after.

Also, free Rufus will install a compatible FreeDOS on a USB drive, the advantage being larger size than the SpinRite ISO of only 1.4 MB-ish, then add the SpinRite program.

CONFIG.SYS only produces a benefit with it's BUFFERS=98 line, but even that can be left off, and the other CONFIG.SYS lines are not critical.

There is/was also a Zip SpinRite ISO sized for 4 GB USB drives - links, anyone?

.

 

[ColbyBouma]

There is/was also a Zip SpinRite ISO sized for 4 GB USB drives - links, anyone?

That .IMG file is available when you download SpinRite, but it's primarily for Mac/Linux users. If you have Windows, just use the .EXE.

https://www.grc.com/upgrade.htm

 

[peterblaise]

Ah, yes, @ColbyBouma, thanks.
I was going on the premise that preparing an internal drive might be from a boot USB, frequently a Linux-variant, hence using a non-Windows-based ISO.
Any trick in the book.
.

 

[PHolder]

@PHolder , @J.D. Gallaway would first have to use fdisk to partition the disk as MBR and format to FAT16.

I don't get your thinking. If it's ALREADY booting FreeDOS just not the same version that Steve is using, all he needs is to replace the necessary files to change the version, no?

 

[Scott]

I don't get your thinking. If it's ALREADY booting FreeDOS just not the same version that Steve is using, all he needs is to replace the necessary files to change the version, no?

I missed that in their explanation; when they said they have FreeDOS installed and booting, I thought they just meant they could boot from a USB.

But if it’s already booting the standard FreeDOS 1.3 from the M.2 drive, I would just replace the standard config.sys and autoexec.bat with the ones from the SpinRite distribution, and copy the SR executable to the C drive as well.

As I reread the issue, it sounds like the problem is the FreeDOS high memory manager which is loaded in config.sys, so just not loading that should work.

 

[DanR]

I would just replace the standard config.sys and autoexec.bat with the ones from the SpinRite distribution, and copy the SR executable to the C drive as well.

And Kernel.sys too!!! That brings in the latest GRC FreeDOS.

 

[J.D. Gallaway]

I missed that in their explanation; when they said they have FreeDOS installed and booting, I thought they just meant they could boot from a USB.

But if it’s already booting the standard FreeDOS 1.3 from the M.2 drive, I would just replace the standard config.sys and autoexec.bat with the ones from the SpinRite distribution, and copy the SR executable to the C drive as well.

As I reread the issue, it sounds like the problem is the FreeDOS high memory manager which is loaded in config.sys, so just not loading that should work.

I think this is the key right here. I'm headed to work having just used my free time to hunt down and purchase a USB3.2 to M.2 adapater which will work with both nvme and sata m.2 drives, and has a very nice toolless design for quick and easy swapping of the drives.

I have some time in the morning after work before an appt, I'll try this out then and let you know what happens.

I was kind of leaning this way anyways, but at the time was reluctant to start futzing with files an parameters that I no longer remembered exactly how they interfaced, and risk borking the working freedos install... Over teh last couple decades I've gotten a little sick of the "tinker to make my tools work so I can make something" rather than the tinkering just for the sake of tinkering. Five years leading a community makerspace where the same 3-5 people did all the work, always going in to spend three days working on tools and resources so I could spend 3 hours building my own project wore a little thin on the nerves.

Probably whey I've decided to build out my own shops now... if I'm going to put that work in, I might as well do it for me and my kids.

Anyways, thanks for helping convince me which direction to go, I'll let you all know what happens.

-JD

 

[Scott]

Note the freedos default names for those files are fdconfig.sys and fdauto.bat so change the extensions on those to nullify them (Maybe change to .bak)

 

[J.D. Gallaway]

Well, I have spinrite natively running off the hard drive! it literally was as simple as renaming the old fdauto.bat -> fdauto.bak and fdconfig.sys -> fdconfig.bak, then copying the appropriate files across from the thumb drive and renaming them. Next project, getting android to dual-boot with it.

And thought I'd show off the thumbdrive I bought specifically for having my spinrite. Yes, I used validrive to verify it was the full 4gb I thought I bought, lol.