[FUBAR-BDHR]

Ran into a little problem just now.  I need to boot a laptop from a dos (win98) bootable CD.  I can boot but oakcdrom and gcdrom both fail to find the drive so I can't run any utilities.  There is no BIOS option for SATA compatibility mode which I've used on other systems to get around this problem.  Any other dos CD drivers out there that might work?  It's an HP Pavilion notebook PV7-1247cl series. 

[Mika]

You wouldn't happen to have IDE bus near you?

I think I just might recall the general formula for writing the config.sys to enable the IDE CD-drive. I never had to tackle with SATA based stuff in DOS.

Mika

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Nope just the built in CD Rom drive.  If it was a PC instead of a laptop I'd just toss another drive in it. 

[Mika]

Can you list the contents of CONFIG.SYS? (Feels weird to write that thing; it's like seeing your long lost old friend after years)

[Mika]

Could you get the required information from an USB? It seems that SATA support for DOS is quite rare nowadays, but there seems to be a little more going on with USBs.

What would you like to do with the computer? There could be some alternative solutions for your problem, but I can't tell since I don't know what you want to do.

Mika
As a sidenote, I think I was able to play Wing Commander 1 on AMD1200 Duron and Windows XP around 2006, without actually installing DOS on HDD. It had something to do with DOS 6.22 bootdisk, CD-ROM and creative use of RAMDRIVE.SYS.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I need to boot it to DOS to make an image of it using Ghost over IPX to my Novell network.  After that I need to clean out all the junk they stick in new laptops and load it up with proper protection.  I alway make an image just in case something goes wrong I can always restore it to the stat it was in before I started messing with it. 

I do have a USB CD/DVD burner still in the box.  DOS drivers for that might work.  Problem is I didn't see an option for legacy USB support either so the USB ports might not work under DOS either.   

[Bobboau]

you want this

[Daniel P]

I still use my floppies for my computer. 

A few weeks ago I need them just for my computer crashed and I need to reinstall it. 

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Downloading UBCD now.  I still use a floppy for all of my stuff except one that I don't have a floppy in.  Have to remedy that one of these days.  This system isn't mine and being a laptop it's hard to find one with a floppy these days.   

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Nope drive doesn't even work with UBCD.  I can boot with it but no CD access. 

[Wobble73]

I alway make an image just in case something goes wrong I can always restore it to the stat it was in before I started messing with it. 
 

Did the laptop not come with it's own recovery disks? They normally ship with a couple of CD's that will set the computer back to factory fresh (ish) condition. Of course you lose all your data, but........

[FUBAR-BDHR]

No recovery disks just a recovery partition.  I haven't seen any off the shelf computer that actually comes with recovery disks in ages.  You either have to make your own or buy them down the road.  The whole point is to not loose any data at all.  Ghost will even let you browse the image of a drive that can't even boot and get your files off of it that way if need be.  Great for when that relative drops a machine in you lap that won't boot and says I need all of my documents off of it and what's a backup?

[captain-custard]

boot it up with a linux live cd and transfer everything of it you need to an external hd , if not why not build a bootable usb thumb drive , you can us e bart pe but there are other solutions out there ....

[FUBAR-BDHR]

One I paid good money for this one.  2 the program only runs in DOS.  There is a 32bit windows version but I have yet to find anywhere it will run.  It won't run in windows and it won't run in dos. 

I'm going to give a USB drive a shot but something is telling me that isn't going to work either.  It's like they purposefully made this machine Vista only and your screwed if you want to boot any other OS.  There aren't even any BIOS settings other then boot order and data/time.  Everything is set and you can't change it. 

[captain-custard]

i just re read and thought , if your not actually trying to save the system but just the docs and stuff then have you got a 2.5" external disk drive if so just rip the drive out and use another pc to cloan it ...



but maybe im missing the point as usual

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well I personally use it to image all my computers to a drive on the network periodically.  So basically I should never have to reload the system.  Just go back to a restore point then pull files off of backup or copy down from my server since I really don't keep much in the way of data on my computers it's all on my file servers. 

I also use it anytime someone gives me a computer to look at.  I do the image before I ever start monkeying around just in case.  If the system does need to be reloaded I have all the stuff and can dump it onto DVDs or whatever.  This is the case of the system I have right now.  A friend bought a new laptop but needs all the crap uninstalled and good antivirus/firewall installed.  He's great at getting viruses so I'm going to make 2 images.  One of the original system before the changes and one of the working system.  That way if something goes wrong while uninstalling the buile in crap I have a fall back point and also when he brings in back in 2 months I can just toss the DVD's with the junk removed in and set the hard drive back to day one without looking for drivers/updates/etc again. 

Usually the big problem I have with laptops is finding a DOS odi driver for the network card.  This is the first one I can't get access to the CD/DVD drive on yet I can boot from the drive.  Wonder if its possible to make a dos bootable CD with more then a 1.44 meg boot partition.