A VERY CUSTOM DOS MEMSTICK

yes, this is about BIOS/Firmware updates

REQUIREMENTSREQUIREMENTS

have a look at current firmware version on the target machine

dmidecode -t system
dmidecode -t bios

grab the latest FreeDOS floppy release

wget https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.3/previews/1.3-rc4/FD13-Floppy.zip
unzip FD13-Floppy.zip

prepare MS-SYS

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/ms-sys/ms-sys-2.6.0.tar.gz
tar xzf ms-sys-2.6.0.tar.gz
cd ms-sys-2.6.0/
echo $MAKEFLAGS
make
make install
cd ../

IMAGE PREPIMAGE PREP

inspect the current situation

ms-sys FD13FLOP.img

grab the FreeDOS tree from there

mkdir lala/
mount FD13FLOP.img lala/

MEMSTICK PREPMEMSTICK PREP

create a FAT16 MBR partition on the memstick, e.g. +100M wide AND SET THE BOOTABLE FLAG

fdisk -l
fdisk -c=dos /dev/MEMSTICK

o
n
p

ENTER (1)
ENTER (62!)
+100M

t
6
a
w

format it as FAT16

partprobe /dev/sda
ls -lF /dev/sda*
mkfs.fat -F16 /dev/MEMSTICK-PARTITION-1

bring the FreeDOS tree in there and eventually some needed ROM and flashing executables

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/
cp -R lala/* /mnt/
cp -R ~/DRIVERS/.../* /mnt/
ls -alhF /mnt/
umount /mnt/

write the boot-code with MS-SYS

ms-sys -h
ms-sys --write --force /dev/MEMSTICK
ms-sys --fat16free /dev/MEMSTICK-PARTITION-1

READY TO GOREADY TO GO

now that all the hassling is over, release the image file

umount lala/
rmdir lala/

RESOURCESRESOURCES

ms-sys http://ms-sys.sourceforge.net/

#12 Create an MS-DOS bootable stick https://sourceforge.net/p/ms-sys/support-requests/12/

Bootable DOS USB stick https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Bootable_DOS_USB_stick

FreeDOS environment https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/BIOS_Update#FreeDOS_environment

FlashBIOS https://wiki.debian.org/FlashBIOS

FREEDOS Ripcord BootDisk http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/

Flashing BIOS from Linux https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Flashing_BIOS_from_Linux

Images that are too large for a floppy https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Flashing_BIOS_from_Linux#Images_that_are_too_large_for_a_floppy

How to fix the error ‘missing command interpreter’ https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000012.htm

Making a PXE-bootable 10MB or larger DOS image https://superuser.com/questions/438120/making-a-pxe-bootable-10mb-or-larger-dos-image