In honor of the IBM PC turning 30, I thought I’d tell some stories about my experiences with the operating system introduced with it, PC DOS (aka MS-DOS).
All posts tagged boot disk
DOS war stories
Posted by Dave Farquhar on August 13, 2011
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2011/08/dos-war-stories/
4 more questions about RAID
Longtime reader Jim ` asked me a few more worthwhile questions while I was procrastinating working on yesterday’s post about RAID. Let’s go to Q&A format.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on November 30, 2010
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2010/11/4-more-questions-about-raid/
How to revive an old PC
Somewhere, stashed in a corner of the basement or a closet, pretty much anyone who works on computers or even has just owned computers for a long time has a stash of obsolete hardware, stashed for a just-in-case moment.
Sometimes just-in-case comes quickly. Sometimes not so quickly. It’s when it comes not so quickly that you can run into problems.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on May 17, 2010
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2010/05/how-to-revive-an-old-pc/
Why I generally buy AMD
I was talking to a new coworker today and of course the topic of our first PCs came up. It was Cyrix-based. I didn’t mention my first PC (it seems I’m about four years older–it was an Am486SX2/66).
With only a couple of exceptions, I’ve always bought non-Intel PCs. Most of the Intel PCs I have bought have been used. One boss once went so far as to call me anti-corporate.
I’m not so much anti-corporate as I am pro-competition.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on October 24, 2007
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2007/10/why-i-generally-buy-amd/
Operating System Not Found, Missing Operating System, and friends
So the PC that stored my resume got kicked (as in the foot of a passer-by hitting it) and died, and the backup that I thought I had… Well, it wasn’t where I thought it was.
Time for some amateur home data recovery. Here’s how I brought it back.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on June 8, 2005
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2005/06/operating-system-not-found-missing-operating-system-and-friends/
Ghost won\’t let me use my monster hard drive!
Here’s a familiar problem, I’m sure.
You need to back up your laptop, so you buy a monster (200+ GB) USB or Firewire hard drive. And then you can’t use it in Symantec/Norton Ghost, for one of two reasons:
1. You can’t format a FAT32 partition bigger than 32 gigabytes.
2. Ghost chokes when it tries to make a file larger than 4 gigabytes.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on October 4, 2004
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2004/10/ghost-wont-let-me-use-my-monster-hard-drive/
Need to squeeze a little more on that floppy?
I’ve been experimenting again with bootdisks and the FreeDOS project came to mind.
Boot floppies are getting rarer but they’re still hard to avoid completely. I think FreeDOS is worth a look for a variety of reasons.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on August 17, 2004
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2004/08/need-to-squeeze-a-little-more-on-that-floppy/
Slimming down the bird: A 2.6 kernel for PCs with 4-8 megs
In case you haven’t read about it elsewhere, a new branch of the Linux kernel called -tiny was quietly released last month. Its main intent is for embedded systems, but I can see all sorts of uses for it. The smaller the kernel, the faster it loads off a floppy, so it’d be great for boot disks. Likewise for diskless machines that boot off the network.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on January 10, 2004
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2004/01/slimming-down-the-bird-a-26-kernel-for-pcs-with-4-8-megs/
CD-ROM troubleshooting under Windows 9x
Occasionally, a PC’s CD or DVD-ROM drive will stop responding for no known good reason. Sometimes the problem is hardware–a CD-ROM drive, being a mechanical component, can fail–but as often as not, it seems, the problem is software rather than hardware.*
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2003/01/cd-rom-troubleshooting-under-windows-9x/