DOS ain't dead

Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD (Miscellaneous)

posted by ecm  , Düsseldorf, Germany, 27.02.2021, 21:27

> Hi,
>
> I would like to know 2 related things if you know ?
>
> 1.
> Is there a way to inject a boot sector on a HD without using sys.com or
> similar tools, I'm looking for something "universal" that can handle BIN
> boot sector file.
> Here is the tools I use to do it on a floppy, each file inject a specific
> boot sector (found on a russian DOS compilation... more bootsector added by
> myself using an hex editor) but from my test when I boot on a floppy disk,
> it only inject on the floppy.
>
> https://uptobox.com/orxf6qgwiqzw

May not fit your requirements entirely, but there is my instsect tool. You can get a current pre-built one from the lDebug releases, in the bin/ subdirectory of the zipfile/tarball. There's the help on how to use it. For your use case you can use the /S=filename switch (load 512-byte sector loader from a file) as well as /IN (on FAT32 don't write to FSINFO) and if you need it /SN (don't check jump and informational FS ID valid).

However, this tool always preserves the EBPB or BPB, including new BPB fields (volume label, serial number, and FS ID). This may be unlike what you want, it is not entirely clear. Though, modifying it to replace the BPBs too would not be much work. (And it is free software.)

> 2.
> Is there a way to convert a floppy boot sector to work with a HD ?

Not generally. Some loaders (such as Microsoft's) work for both FAT12 and FAT16, regardless of whether that FS is on a diskette or hard disk. Others work only for either FAT12 or FAT16, not both. FAT32 loaders generally work only with FAT32.

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l

Complete thread:

• Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - nico7550, 27.02.2021, 19:44 (Miscellaneous)
  • Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - ecm, 27.02.2021, 21:27
  • Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - mceric, 27.02.2021, 23:07
    • Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - nico7550, 27.02.2021, 23:24
      • Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - mceric, 28.02.2021, 01:48
        • Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - ecm, 28.02.2021, 08:57
          • Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - nico7550, 28.02.2021, 10:35
            • Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - RayeR, 01.03.2021, 14:52
          • Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - mceric, 28.02.2021, 16:09
            • Floppy boot sector injection/conversion to HD - ecm, 28.02.2021, 18:26