Is it Possible to Build a Knoppix-Like CDROM Version of DOS?

[marbux]

On 11/6/06, Samuel Thibault <samuel.thibault at ens-lyon.org> wrote:
> Martin McCormick, le Mon 06 Nov 2006 13:46:25 -0600, a écrit :
> > If you build a bootable CDROM containing DOS, what letter is it
> > likely to assume?
>
> By default, the next one after disk drive partition.

More precisely, the next one after the boot drive partition,
designated by default as C:, which would be D:. The next hard drive
partition would be E:.

Note however that
> you can give mscdex the /d option (iirc) for specifying the drive letter
> for CD.
>
Yes, that's mandatory to escape the default.

I am really rusty on my DOS, but you might think about building a
bootable Linux instance on CD or a USB memory stick that includes
DOSEMU. <http://www.dosemu.org/>. It comes with FreeDOS, although
other DOSs can be used. If you use a memory stick, you can read and
write to it. With a bootable CD, so long as you do not need to write
to disk, no complications. If you need to write to disk, then you'll
need to manually select a directory on writable media (e.g., the hard
or floppy drive) to write to at the time you wish to do the write.

Here are some more links that may help:


Booting from USB drives

Booting Linux off of a USB drive, <http://www.simonf.com/usb/>.
Boot KNOPPIX from an USB Memory Stick,
<http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb/>.


Booting from CDs
	
Making Bootable Linux CDs,
<http://www.geocities.com/potato.geo/bootlinuxcd.html>.


Booting from floppies

The Linux Bootdisk HOWTO, <http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/>


SysLinux, <http://syslinux.zytor.com/>. ("The SYSLINUX Project covers
lightweight bootloaders for floppy media (SYSLINUX), network booting
(PXELINUX), and bootable "El Torito" CD-ROMs (ISOLINUX). The project
also includes MEMDISK, a tool to boot legacy operating systems (such
as DOS) from nontraditional media; it is usually used in conjunction
with PXELINUX and ISOLINUX.)

Good luck!

Marbux