Hard disk setup

# 3 Hard disk setup

Contents of this section

## 3.1 How do I use my hard disk with dosemu?

First, mount your dos hard disk partition as a Linux subdirectory. For example, you could create a directory in Linux such as /dos (mkdir -m 755 /dos) and add a line like

       /dev/hda1       /dos     msdos   umask=022

to your /etc/fstab. (In this example, the hard disk is mounted read-only. You may want to mount it read/write by replacing "022" with "000" and using the -m 777 option with mkdir). Now `mount /dos`. Now you can add a line like

      lredir d: linux\fs/dos

to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file in your hdimage (see the comments on LREDIR below). On a multi-user system you may want to use

      lredir d: linux\fs\${home}

where "home" is the name of an environmental variable that contains the location of the dos directory (/dos in this example).

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Tim Bird (Tim_R_Bird@Novell.COM) states that LREDIR users should

be careful when they use LREDIR in the autoexec, because COMMAND.COM will continue parsing the autoexec.bat from the redirected drive as the same file offset where it left off in the autoexec.bat on the physical drive. For this reason, it is safest to have the autoexec.bat on the redirected drive and the physical drive (diskimage) be the same.

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Robert D. Warren (`rw11258@xx.acs.appstate.edu`) reported (4/28/94) that

I boot off a small hdimage file (less than 1 MB - and twice as large as needs be at that), and the next to last line in my config.sys file on the hdimage boot image is:

            install=c:\lredir.exe LINUX\FS\home/dos

This will execute lredir just before the command interpreter runs. And I have successfully run it with both command.com and 4DOS. This eliminates the offset problem using lredir in autoexec.bat.

## 3.2 Can I use my stacked/double-spaced/super-stored disk?

At this time, compressed drives cannot be accessed via the redirector (lredir or emufs). However, many people have had success by simply uncommenting the

       disk { wholedisk "/dev/hda" }        # 1st partition on 1st disk

line in their dosemu config file. Others have had success using

       disk { partition "/dev/hda1" 1 }

and running the `mkpartition` utility (included in the dosemu distribution).

`[`WARNING: Make sure your dos partitions are not mounted and writeable from Linux while you are using dosemu with wholedisk or partition access. This is an easy way to destroy the data on your dos partition.]

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If LILO is installed, the above will not work. However...

Thomas Mockridge (`thomas@aztec.co.za`) reported (8/5/94) that

To boot dosemu with LILO and Stacker 4.0 I did a little work around...

1. `dd` the MBR to a file. (or norton utility, etc., first 512 bytes)

2. Boot dos (from full boot not emu), do a fdisk /mbr, make your dos partition active with (dos) fdisk.

3. Copy the new MBR to a file.

4. Replace the original MBR

5. Copy the second MBR to /var/lib/dosemu/partition.hda? (Whichever is your dos partition)

6. Set dosemu.conf

                   disk {partition "/dev/hda? ?"}

7. Start dosemu and and voila! No LILO.

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Holger Schemel (`q99492@pbhrzx.uni-paderborn.de`) reported (2/10/94) that

Works even fine under DOSEMU with MS-DOS 6.0. If you have problems, then you have to edit the file 'DBLSPACE.INI' manually and change the disk letter to the letter your drive gets under DOSEMU.

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Darren J Moffat (`moffatd@dcs.gla.ac.uk`) also reported (3/27/94)

"...use 6.2 if you can get it!! Just make sure you have a lilo boot disk on hand since dos 6{.2} will change the MBR of the boot HD."

## 3.3 I get an error message about my config.sys file but it looks fine.

Corey Sweeney (`corey@amiganet.xnet.com`) reported (12/8/93) that

Sometimes when loading config.sys you will get a error message saying something like "error in line 6 of config.sys". The problem will go away if you add several carriage returns at the end of your config.sys.

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