Program requires booting into DOS outside of Windows

[videobruce]

I need to boot into DOS (outside of Windows, NOT MS-DOS) to use a specific device progranning progam. I also need to have access to the serial port since that is how the device interfaces with the PC. I was aware of this, but I don't find it that 'easy';
http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

Using MS-DOS won't cut it, even Win95 is probabaly a issue. Anyway, I won't take a chance since if there is a probem, the devices' firmware will get corrupted and I wind up with a 'brick'.

Suggestions?

[Paul Komski]

I have written programs that will read or write to a serial port in DOS. In that respect DOS has no problems with accessing the first four physical serial RS232 interfaces - those normally assigned to COM 1 though 4 by the BIOS. Other serial ports and other COM enumeration would be more complex and I haven't been able to access them from a pure 16 bit DOS program.

Nor is there generally a major problem in running most DOS programs within most 32 bit versions of Windows. Note that if run in WinXP they will tend to hog all the resources.

So I don't know what you mean when you say that MS-DOS won't cut it. DOS and straightforward serial port access is as old as the hills. The programming requires a knowledge of how to open the ports (for read/write etc) and how to specify any settings such as baud, parity and so on.

Perhaps you could explain a bit more or indicate exactly what the specific device programming program is. If you don't have a physical on board RS232 interface then I don't think there would be any way to access, for example, a USB to Serial converter; you need the physical serial port to be on-board. If you can boot to the simplest of DOS promts (say by just by sys-ing a FAT partition) then if the program has been written correctly it should function OK.

Nor do I understand why you think the firmware (of which device by the way) would be corrupted or what would be writing to the firmware in the first place.

[videobruce]

The program 'programs' a two way radio. It is a known problem if you try to run this program within Windows or within a DOS window within Windows (MS-DOS I thought it was called).
I need to boot into some version of DOS with NO Windows installed or running. I was looking for the easiest way to do so since command lines any me don't get along. ;)

[Paul Komski]

MS-DOS is just Microsoft-DOS; there is also Free-DOS and Dr-DOS and other creations. All versions of Windows (excluding NT) up to, and even including, WinME are DOS-based and if you boot directly to their DOS prompt (not easy with WinME) rather than to Windows then you are in true DOS. That is different from using the DOS prompt within Windows.

With WinNT, Win2K, WinXP and later a command prompt is a command prompt and not even a DOS prompt.

There are different versions of MS-DOS and the various DOS-based versions of Windows are built on different versions of DOS.

If you boot directly to the DOS prompt of Windows 95 or 98 it doesn't matter that Windows was installed into the same partition - you are in true DOS and no Windows is running; the windows files might just as well be data files. The only thing that could affect the boot up would be how autoexec.bat and config.sys had been configured but that is no different than loading a pure DOS installation.

Win98 runs on MS-DOS 7.1 and is a good version because it supports FAT32 etc and yet is still backward compatible with 16-bit applications.

MS-DOS 6.22 is another good stand-alone version of DOS.

You can run DOS from a floppy, a CD in floppy emulation mode or from a hard drive; that is up to you and dependent on what hardware you have available.

If you are particularly paranoid about having a stable and true and simple version of DOS then I suggest you make yourself a very simple DOS partition (http://vik/paulshelp/zpages.php?id=1715) on your hard drive. As suggested in my first post this just involves sys-ing it (in other words using format C: /s or format C: /sys depending on the version in question) typically from a boot floppy - though a CD using floppy emulation would be just as effective.

There is nothing, of course, to stop you just running DOS from a floppy or a CD with floppy emulation. If you want an ISO to create such a CD for you then the Win98se ISO (http://vik/paulshelp/zpages.php?id=1817) should do the job for you. You don't have to burn all the files that you need to the CD as long as you can navigate to the ones you want on a hard or floppy drive etc after booting to the CD's A: prompt.

[videobruce]

Thanks for the reply Paul. What 'scars' me is using command lines. I really don't want to create a separate partition on the HDD, thought I suppose it may come in handy in the future for other unknown reasons. I was just thinkind of a bootable CD (I never tried doing a bootable USB stick).

FreeDOS was suggested elsewhere and that looks as the best idea assuming this old program (written in the late 80's or early 90's by a 3rd party for Motorola) that has been updated somewhat would work ok.

The real problem and concern is corrupting the firmware inside the radio through a improper O/S.

[Paul Komski]

The program should run from just about any version of DOS. If you have a floppy drive I would use that and use one of the bootdisk.com downloads specially made for flashing BIOSes; viz Driver Free Disk For BIOS Flashing (http://www.bootdisk.com/). If you don't have a floppy drive you can unzip the image file and turn the floppy image into a CD ISO using zmakeiso (http://www.paulski.com/zpages.php?id=1814) or any similar third party utility. Then burn the ISO with burncdcc (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm) or similar. If you want to add any files to the ISO just include them in the zfiles folder before making the ISO. The total shouldn't exceed 1.44 MB obvioulsly.

[Paul Komski]

You can go the FreeDOS route if you want of course (http://www.freedos.org/freedos/files/). Just be aware that it is full installation of FreeDOS (with a range of configurable options and utilities) and not just a simple boot disk with a minimal number of mandatory files included on it. The non-essential utilities can of course all be deleted.

The minimum mandatory (in MSDOS) is a bootable partition boot sector that links to io.sys and its sisters msdos.sys and command.com. Each version of DOS requires just those four elements (boot sector and three files) - though other versions of DOS will have a different trio of file names but which do the same stuff.