China DOS Union

Thanks to Brother Budian's unremitting efforts, I really like this software, which has brought us a lot of convenience ^_^
In addition, two small questions are raised:
1. Redhat has developed a patch for grub that can display xpm images with a size of 640*480. Can you integrate your patch into grub for dos?
2. Grub supports network booting, but the driver needs to be added during compilation. Can grub for dos add this function?

Thank you for testing this software.

Both questions are answered with: Of course. The reason for the positive response is that grub for dos does not involve the core of GNU GRUB at all. grub for dos only modifies the code of the map disk mapping part, and nothing else is modified. The functions are completely the same as GNU GRUB. As long as you compile under LINUX, it will definitely pass. No problem.

But it should be noted that I myself have not been involved in these two questions and currently have no time to care about these two questions. I hope those who are interested will do it themselves.

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I am currently very concerned about the running status of grub_t07.exe. I hope more people will participate in the testing, of course, still in the virtual machine.

I am very afraid that this version still has major problems. In that case, it may really be difficult. I hope those who test successfully will also report the successful news. I am a bit anxious. I am really afraid of failure this time. Has anyone tested with Virtual PC? I hope someone tests under different virtual machines. In the future, I more hope someone tests on a real machine (of course, this test machine can be allowed to be damaged).

I just tried the T7 version. Unfortunately, when starting Win98 in VMWare, the same blue screen error still occurs and the system freezes. Now I have cut this screen and uploaded it:


I think, to completely solve this problem, if it's difficult to do it by directly servicing Win98, it's suggested to do it like this: After GRUB virtual floppy disk and finding that Win98 is starting, disable the "protected mode disk access" function of Win98 automatically through a special code (the disable is only valid for this Win98 boot, or an option can be added to GRUB for DOS to let users decide according to the actual situation of their system whether to disable this function to enhance compatibility). Anyway, once this function is disabled automatically, Win98 can start normally, and its functions (whether it's the function of GRUB for DOS or the function of Win98) are basically not affected at all.

Now there is a question that hasn't been solved, which is why mine is normal but yours isn't?

Where is the difference?

My floppy disk image was generated by formatting Win98, and there are only 4 files in it: io.sys, command.com, drvspace.bin, msdos.sys. Among them, msdos.sys was copied from the C: drive and overwrote the empty msdos.sys file on the A: drive.

I suspect that your environment may have items in config.sys. Below I am also going to test your environment on my machine. In short, this difference must be found to see what exactly causes it.

Budian: Just now I tried. Only two necessary files, HIMEM.SYS and IFSHLP.SYS, and items like DOS=HIGH,UMB were loaded in CONFIG.SYS. Basically no TSR programs were loaded in AUTOEXEC.BAT, but the situation was still the same when starting Win98. So it should not be an issue with the startup files like CONFIG.SYS. By the way, I tested with the English version of Win98SE.

There is something strange here.

My C: drive is VMware-protected Win98. The D: drive is a copy of the C: drive. But in VMware, the D: drive is not protected so that it can be written to.

I use

map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd1,0)/dos.img (fd0)
chainloader (hd1,0)+1
boot

to boot and can enter Win98. Note that the full version of your DOS7.10 has been installed on the D: drive. First boot to the command line, then use the win command to start Win98. The config, autoexec, and msdos, etc., have not been modified at all. All drivers have been loaded.

One problem that occurs is that the A: drive cannot be accessed. This is understandable, because the A: drive is mapped to a certain file on hd1, and now in Win98, hd1 has become hd0. Therefore, I manually use debug in Win98 to temporarily modify the mapping in int13 to map the A: drive to the corresponding sector sequence in hd0. At this time, I can see the files in the A: drive, but as soon as I try to write to the A: drive, Win98 says that the A: drive is write-protected and cannot be written to.

It seems that the problem is that some hidden thing has write-protected the disk.

If the A: drive is write-protected, then Win98 can of course start normally, as I have encountered; however, if the C: drive is write-protected, then Win98 cannot start, because Win98 needs to write to the C: drive when starting, which is just as you have encountered.

Let's not stop, continue to track its cause. Thank you for your hard work all the time.

I suspect whether it might be due to an error in the "Protected Mode Disk Access" of Win98 when accessing the IMG image on the hard disk that is being used as a virtual floppy disk (because that IMG image file might be in use, that is, in virtualization, and perhaps that "Protected Mode Disk Access" is incompatible with this). In my case, if I put the IMG on the C drive where Win98 is located and use GRUB to virtualize it and then boot Win98, there is a blue screen error and then the system freezes; if I put the IMG on another drive D and use GRUB to virtualize it and then boot Win98, it is a black screen freeze (very strange).

In fact, you can track which situation causes a crash faster. For example, use the F8 key to call out the menu, select step by step confirmation, and then you can know which driver causes the crash or blue screen and when they occur.

Budian: Tracing with F8 is ineffective because the problem is not with any loadable driver that can be selected, but with the IFSMGR VXD segment in Win98 that cannot write records and cannot be stopped (specifically, you can refer to relevant resources). So this cannot be easily judged by tracing.

I used the versions of grub for dos 0.14 and test7, but I still can't boot the "Super Universal MS-DOS 7.10 Boot Disk" of Wengier normally. The error prompt is that there is an error in a certain line in config.sys, or it dies when loading emm386, but there is no problem when booting with vfloppy.

My method is:
map (hd0,0)/msdos71.img (fd0)
chainloader (hd0,0)/msdos71.img
rootnoverify (fd0)
boot

I get such errors both in the virtual machine and on the real machine. I don't know the reason.

Thanks to brother cavvie for providing this clue. Since I never use emm386, I didn't notice this problem.

Next, I'm going to experiment and solve this problem first. It's very possible that the two problems are related.

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wengier: I don't have any information about IFSMGR. I wonder if you can give some more hints.

Just downloaded the "Super Universal MS-DOS 7.10 Boot Disk" and tested it, it runs normally under my virtual machine.

First, I use F8 to call up the win98 menu, then run grub_t07 at the command line.

After entering the grub> prompt, type

map (hd1,0)/msdos710.img (fd0)

chainloader (hd1,0)/msdos710.img

boot

When the prompt PC-CHACHE, SMARTDRV, CANCEL appears, select CANCEL.

Then I enter the DOS A:> prompt. Here I type the set command and see

winbootdir=.

This cannot be used to boot windows from the A: drive. So,

set PATH=c:\windows;c:\windows\command

c:

cd \windows

win

Okay, win98 starts normally.

I just tested this "Super MS-DOS 7.10 Boot Disk" from October 12th with GRUB for DOS, and it started basically normally. But I haven't tried the previous versions of the boot disk with GRUB.EXE, so I don't know if they would also work.

Noted: Regarding winbootdir=., I once mentioned in the forum that this is a universal method for booting Win9x (whether it's Win95/95A/95B, or Win98/98SE, whether the Chinese version or English version of WIN, no matter which drive and which path WIN is in, even if there are multiple Win3.x/9x systems installed in the system , you can use this method to boot into Win9x under this MS-DOS 7.1. Specifically, after setting it, you just need to use the CD command to enter the path where Win9x is located, and then enter the WIN command to enter Win9x (no need to set PATH or any other content). This is also how it is set by default in the MSDOS.SYS of the "Full Installation Version of MS-DOS 7.10".

grub_t08 has been made, but there are no new changes regarding the emulation function of int13, which is completely equivalent to grub_t07. This is just for wengier's testing, and friends don't need to download it.

Added uppercase options so that another menu.lst file can be specified using the --CONFIG-FILE command-line parameter in CONFIG.SYS.

I forgot to make the situation clear. I installed grub into the MBR.
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
Then when booting, press "C" to enter the command mode, and enter
map (hd0,0)/msdos711.img (fd0)
chainloader (hd0,0)/msdos711.img
boot
But this cannot boot normally, always showing config.sys line 7 error, emm386 can't load, etc., and then the whole system stops.
But if I don't use this function in the boot guide, but press F8 to enter the win98 command line when booting and then execute grub_07.exe, then enter the same
map (hd0,0)/msdos711.img (fd0)
chainloader (hd0,0)/msdos711.img
boot
Then it can boot normally!!!!!
It's very strange. Does grub for dos not work normally when installed into the MBR or other places on the hard disk? Do I have to start grub.exe through dos to use the img file normally?