China DOS Union

1. On computers newly assembled in the last couple of years, it's not easy to find a floppy drive, and it's also not easy to find a floppy disk that can be read and written repeatedly without errors. But it's very easy to find a motherboard that supports booting from USB-HDD, USB-ZIP, USB-FDD, or USB-CDROM (they probably all do; I just haven't made a strict survey ^_^ ) — everyone has a USB flash drive, right? — if you can't even find one of those, then there's no need to keep reading. So making a boot disk on a USB flash drive (in HDD or ZIP mode) is very necessary!

2. USB-FDD has the same capacity as a 1.44M floppy disk, and the method is simple and already done, so let's just consider USB-HDD and USB-ZIP. 【 USB-CDROM actually boots a bootable CD, right? That has also already been achieved.】

3. USB-HDD and USB-ZIP should use the same boot method as a hard disk. These techniques are currently fairly mature and easy to implement. What I mainly value is the larger capacity of the boot disk. You can install a slimmed-down win98, Linux, etc., and adding some system maintenance tools is even easier.

4. With the boot disk systems that have already been implemented, the drive letters change a lot after booting, and the order is different from the drive-letter order everyone is used to under their normal systems, which can easily lead to mistakes. If in a newly implemented boot disk it were possible to arbitrarily assign drive letters recognizable by the system, that would be even more perfect. For example, if the boot disk (USB flash drive) is G, then after booting you would see C, D, E, F, G just like under Windoze X, and even when operating under DOS people wouldn't accidentally Format/FDISK the wrong thing.


Hope the experts on the forum will be interested in looking into this!

We can organize an interest development group and sign up to take part in the development

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Thanks to the two posters above, let's all study it when we have time, heh... heh...

Sounds good, let's all look into it. I also have a suggestion: although USB flash drives are already very common, the cost is still not small, and in the long run USB flash drives are not the main direction. I suggest trying CF cards. CF cards have broader uses than USB flash drives, are more widespread, and are also cheaper. A few weeks ago, I saw an 8M CF card at the old-goods market, a Nikon one at that, with an asking price of 100 yuan. I said it was too expensive, 20! In the end the deal was made at 30. After going back I tried using the USB flash drive method to make a boot disk, and failed! If it succeeds, it would be more convenient and practical than a USB flash drive.

I've long since been using USB flash drive booting. Mine is a 32M Tsinghua Tongfang Huicun, and the boot mode is USB-ZIP.

This doesn't need research, does it? Making an HDD mini system is much easier to implement than on a CD.。。

Thanks everyone for the enthusiastic discussion! Let me say a few things:
1. USB flash drives are fairly common now. With this "mass" foundation, the market is huge!
By comparison, there are fewer CF cards, and the key thing is that you also need a card reader. USB flash drive booting requires both the motherboard and the drive to support it, and I estimate there are more issues with CF cards.

2. A small hard disk is of course good, but that doesn't seem directly comparable to a USB flash drive, just like a landline and a mobile phone. Today's society emphasizes individuality, and "mobility" is one of the characteristics that follows that trend, so I believe researching USB flash drive booting is still very meaningful.

3. Everyone should have noticed that there are quite a few posts on the forum about failures when making USB flash drive boot disks. That shows that simply transplanting hard disk principles may not necessarily be ok. I think manufacturer product factors are involved here (for example, dividing protected areas / emulated floppy areas, etc.)... therefore, this is still something worth researching!

The following is quoted from Master Rushi at 2004-6-8 09:45:17 AM:
This doesn't really need research, does it? Making a mini HDD system is much easier to implement than putting it on a CD。。

Master Rushi: if the MINI98 CD edition you're researching were extended to a USB flash drive, wouldn't it be even more practical? The software inside could be upgraded online>

USB flash drive booting really is convenient, and easy to carry, with enough capacity and not easily damaged. Experts, think of a way!

The following is quoted from 阿帕奇 at 2004-6-14 AM 04:18:46:

The following is quoted from 如是大师 at 2004-6-8 AM 09:45:17:
This doesn't need any research, right? Making a mini HDD system is much easier to implement than doing it on a CD.。。

如是大师: wouldn't it be even more practical to extend the MINI98 CD edition you're researching to a USB flash drive? The software inside could be upgraded online>

What I mean is, that system of mine can be directly transplanted to a USB flash drive for use; you only need to modify three files in the boot files: msdos.sys, autoexecbat, and config.sys

So how exactly do you make a USB mobile hard disk into a USB HDD boot disk? I've tried many methods and still haven't succeeded.
Experts above, how exactly should it be made?

Talk about the detailed production process!

Sounds good, let's all look into it. I also have a suggestion: although USB flash drives are already very common, the cost is still not small, and in the long run USB flash drives are not the main direction. I suggest trying CF cards. CF cards have broader uses than USB flash drives, are more widespread, and are also cheaper. A few weeks ago, I saw an 8M CF card at the old-goods market, a Nikon one at that, with an asking price of 100 yuan. I said it was too expensive, 20! In the end the deal was made at 30. After going back I tried using the USB flash drive method to make a boot disk, and failed! If it succeeds, it would be more convenient and practical than a USB flash drive. Successfully formatted directly as a boot disk under win98