creating a system disk

  • Thread starter Thread starter J Garcia
  • Start date Start date
J

J Garcia

First, pardon my post if this is the wrong place but this seems like an
issue with disk security.

Second - the issue:

We do some development where our host computer in running Windows XP Pro
(SP2). Our target device is a DOS based system. The target device boots from
a compact flash disk which loads up as drive C: In the past, we would use a
machine running Windows 98 to format and make the flash disk bootable. How
we did this is important to know -

We have an "image" of what the flash disk should look like. This image is
stored on the host computer. We use a flash card reader and plug it is a USB
port. We go into the "DOS" directory so that we can execute the format.exe
and/or sys.exe programs explicitly from our purchased (and liscenced) DOS
compatible system. We get the warning that something trying to write to boot
sector (antivirus I think posts the warning). We click continue anyways.
Once this is done, we do an xcopy of the "image" to comple setting up the
flash disk.

Having said that, we would like to get rid of the Windows 98 machine and do
the same thing with the XP machine. However, when we attempt the sys
portion, we get a "16 bit MS-DOS subsystem" error that says "An application
attempted to directly access the hard disk, which cannot be supported..." We
select ignore but still get a error indicating cannot get drive
specifications.

I'm guessing that it a "breach" of security. Is there a way to allow us to
format and create a bootable flash disk as if it were an 'A' drive diskette?

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks,
 
Windows 98 is based on the old MS-DOS platform.
Windows XP is not based on MS-DOS, therefore there
is no MS-DOS in Windows XP to access.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| First, pardon my post if this is the wrong place but this seems like an
| issue with disk security.
|
| Second - the issue:
|
| We do some development where our host computer in running Windows XP Pro
| (SP2). Our target device is a DOS based system. The target device boots from
| a compact flash disk which loads up as drive C: In the past, we would use a
| machine running Windows 98 to format and make the flash disk bootable. How
| we did this is important to know -
|
| We have an "image" of what the flash disk should look like. This image is
| stored on the host computer. We use a flash card reader and plug it is a USB
| port. We go into the "DOS" directory so that we can execute the format.exe
| and/or sys.exe programs explicitly from our purchased (and liscenced) DOS
| compatible system. We get the warning that something trying to write to boot
| sector (antivirus I think posts the warning). We click continue anyways.
| Once this is done, we do an xcopy of the "image" to comple setting up the
| flash disk.
|
| Having said that, we would like to get rid of the Windows 98 machine and do
| the same thing with the XP machine. However, when we attempt the sys
| portion, we get a "16 bit MS-DOS subsystem" error that says "An application
| attempted to directly access the hard disk, which cannot be supported..." We
| select ignore but still get a error indicating cannot get drive
| specifications.
|
| I'm guessing that it a "breach" of security. Is there a way to allow us to
| format and create a bootable flash disk as if it were an 'A' drive diskette?
|
| I hope this makes sense.
|
| Thanks,
 
I think you misunderstood. I have a compatible DOS. I am not using the OS
from the HOST machine. That is, we licsence DOS form a third party vendor.
We copied the directory (installation) structure of the OS onto our host
machine. The copy is located is some directory (ie. MYDOS). I can navigate
into the MYDOS directory and execute the commands there. This works fine on
a Windows 98 machine because it does not have the security enhancements or
some other feature which blocks the program from writing to the boot sector
on the flash drive. I'm just trying to execute an OS program (format.exe)
from the MYDOS directory which resides on the XP machine.
 
How To Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305595&sd=tech

DOS NTFS boot disk to access NTFS partitions in Windows XP
http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| First, pardon my post if this is the wrong place but this seems like an
| issue with disk security.
|
| Second - the issue:
|
| We do some development where our host computer in running Windows XP Pro
| (SP2). Our target device is a DOS based system. The target device boots from
| a compact flash disk which loads up as drive C: In the past, we would use a
| machine running Windows 98 to format and make the flash disk bootable. How
| we did this is important to know -
|
| We have an "image" of what the flash disk should look like. This image is
| stored on the host computer. We use a flash card reader and plug it is a USB
| port. We go into the "DOS" directory so that we can execute the format.exe
| and/or sys.exe programs explicitly from our purchased (and liscenced) DOS
| compatible system. We get the warning that something trying to write to boot
| sector (antivirus I think posts the warning). We click continue anyways.
| Once this is done, we do an xcopy of the "image" to comple setting up the
| flash disk.
|
| Having said that, we would like to get rid of the Windows 98 machine and do
| the same thing with the XP machine. However, when we attempt the sys
| portion, we get a "16 bit MS-DOS subsystem" error that says "An application
| attempted to directly access the hard disk, which cannot be supported..." We
| select ignore but still get a error indicating cannot get drive
| specifications.
|
| I'm guessing that it a "breach" of security. Is there a way to allow us to
| format and create a bootable flash disk as if it were an 'A' drive diskette?
|
| I hope this makes sense.
|
| Thanks,
 
Back
Top