Re: Booting from HDD

Dear Jason, 

If it's decimal 9492 that would be hex 2514 which (by
my
 reckoning, based on Tim Neitz's NASM complete
printout)
means that your load has progressed 5/6 of the way
through the 3000h kernel, and is about ready to
"accept:" the first word from block 18.  But can block
18 have been loaded (or, for that matter, can any mod
be saved?) if your flash disk is not emulating a
floppy?
IMHO you are on the right track. Perhaps one of the
"start" words in CF (start0, start1, start2) expect
somewhere that CF was booted from a floppy. 

 Unfortunately, as a mere "consumer grade" forther, 
I cannot offer practical advice; all I know is that,
like your FreeDOS, Sidux on my flash drive shows up as
a second Hard Disc.  How about some practical input
from the person who wrote the USB code in CF05? Who
prepared the flash disc for SEAFORTH? Though I guess
Jason might prefer to chew this nice big bone in his
own corner.              

Meanwhile, my local computer shop has ceased to stock
floppy discs.   

Quoting Jason Kemp <[email protected]>:

>... " Dear Nick,
>... " 
>... " Sorry, I sent this yesterday but it's been
>... " bounced back.
>... " 
>... " It doesn't boot from a flash drive.
>... " 
>... " The board has a Phoenix BIOS and it identifies a
>... " USB flash drive in the 
>... " BIOS setup as "USB-HDD0" so I assume it is
>... " emulating a hard disk--in 
>... " fact I had the same flash drive running FreeDOS
>... " before (so I could run 
>... " Pygmy) and DOS saw it as the C: drive.  So if
>... " it's emulating a HDD then 
>... " I expect that is why colorForth Won't boot
>... " fully--it displays "P9492" in 
>... " the top right though, which I assume is from the
>... " progress routine in 
>... " boot.asm.  Lots of guessing and assuming at the
>... " mo!
>... " 
>... " Just a brief Google of USB Flash booting and it
>... " appears that in some AMI 
>... " BIOSes give a forced FDD emulation option.
>... " 
>... " Jason
>... " 
>... " Nick Maroudas said the following on 14/03/2008
>... " 20:36:
>... " > Dear Jason,
>... " >
>... " > Looking forward to more from you and John
>... " Comeau, on how
>... " > to boot (and save?) with his iso on your flash
>... " drive.  
>... " >
>... " > Re your not finding a version that works on a
>... " 3GHz P4,
>... " > I
>... " > have the same experience with 3.3 GHz PD on
>... " Intel945
>... " > board. None of the following booted properly -
>... " not
>... " > John's CD of CFDOS4, nor floppies with Chuck's
>... " CF01,
>... " > nor the Neitz/StMarie CF01, nor Josh's CF05
>... " and a
>... " > related CF05 from Ray - though every one of
>... " these ran
>... " > reliably on my 0.55 GHz P4/ASUS P2. However
>... " (to my
>... " > relief!) Howerd Oakford's CFDOS4 (from
>... " Howerd's
>... " > website)
>... " > runs on both the old and the new machine. 
>... " >
>... " > http://www.inventio.co.uk/
>... " >
>... " > Scratching around for a possible reason, I
>... " found JC's 
>... " > meticulous comparison View of
>... " > /colorforth/boot_asm_list.txt on
>... " SourceForge.net. 
>... " > According to my understanding of John's list,
>... " number 11
>... " > is the only one for sure that "has VESA code
>... " instead of
>... " > AGP" - VESA/VBE being the new standard for
>... " graphics
>... " > software of course. 
>... " > JC lists number 11 as
>... " "/usr/src/howerd/VESA/boot.asm" 
>... " > but no. 10 is also by Howerd
>... " > "/usr/src/howerd/Quartus/BOOT.ASM # same as
>... " Kris
>... " > Johnson's"
>... " > so I am not sure which boot.asm is used to
>... " boot Howerd's
>... " > floppy, and which one is used to boot John's
>... " CD (and
>... " > your USB flash drive). But if VESA/VBE does
>... " indeed
>... " > turn out to be crucial for some newer
>... " machines, then I
>... " > shall owe it to JC's method for spotting the
>... " difference
>... " > :-) 
>... " >
>... " > Caritas,
>... " >
>... " > NickM
>... " >