FreeDOS 1.1 USB Boot Image

I’ve updated the FreeDOS USB boot image to now include the official FreeDOS 1.1 kernel, and command interpreter, now that it has been officially released.

FreeDOS USB Image: FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img.bz2

Size: 117652 bytes
SHA1: 7d8a3c73f9cfdc71611e3f7a5b7b134529179821

If you are looking for a FreeDOS 1.0 USB Boot Image, see my earlier post of the same title.

If you run in to trouble, take a look at the comments for 1.0 first, many will apply.  If that doesn’t solve your issue, leave a comment.

21 thoughts on “FreeDOS 1.1 USB Boot Image”

  1. Hello…

    Many thanks for your USB boot image.

    I did :
    #dd if=FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img of=/dev/sdd

    Then I mounted the key on a folder of mine :
    #mount /dev/sdd1 ./usb_key
    #cp BIOS_UPDATE.EXE ./usb_key ; umount usb_key

    I could add another partition after yours, because the key was so big (1G). Anyway the executables in the image are so small (100 KiB) that you could add plenty of tools on it.

    Many thanks for the update. It worked like a charm and I updated my bios flawlessly with an USB key.

  2. What is the filesystem on this image? vfat isn’t working for me, and mount (in Debian sid) doesn’t recognize the filesystem, thus I can’t mount the image nor the burned USB stick so I can add my HDD utility to it.

    Help?

  3. Hi,

    what sort of file system is used in this image?

    mount -o loop ~/FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img /tmp/test3/
    mount: you must specify the filesystem type

    thanks

    cheers
    alessandra

  4. @Alessandra
    @Trey

    This is a full disk image, which includes an MBR, and a partition table. I think the first partition has the FAT filesystem.

    As far as how to mount this, you’d have to taste the partition table first. Not sure how you’d go about doing this, but if you find out, let me know!

  5. Is this compatible with MEMDISK? By that, I mean, can I use it like fdboot.img or balder10.img? In GRUB2 I can boot both of those with the commands linux16 and initrd16 and a MEMDISK image.

  6. Works very well.

    I’ve made a mistake, by trying to mount /dev/sdb instead of /dev/sdb1 and I received the error message:
    “mount: you must specify the filesystem type”

    So please note, that the image contains a partition table, which is not very common by USB sticks.

    Dear Derek, you helped me a lot. Thank you!

  7. $ sudo kpartx -av Downloads/FreeDOS-1.0-USB-Boot.img
    loop0p1 : 0 63456 /dev/loop0 32
    $ sudo mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 /mnt
    $ ls /mnt
    command.com kernel.sys
    $ df -TH /mnt
    Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    /dev/mapper/loop0p1 vfat 33M 113k 33M 1% /mnt

  8. Thanks so much for this FreeDOS boot image! I have a Mac, so I couldn’t run a motherboard BIOS update EXE file that either needs Windows (that’d run in a DOS shell) or pure DOS, but with this FreeDOS USB stick I have now it made it easy to get what I needed done.

    Thanks again!

  9. Thanks Derek! I’ve tried to make my own, but without success (as yet). Your’s worked 1st try. So can you list the recipe you used to create this? Thanks.

  10. Freebsd

    Dell m6300 BIOS UPDATE

    gunzip -d FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img.bz2
    dd if=FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img of=/dev/daX
    mount_msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt
    cp XXXBIOS.exe /mnt
    umount /mnt

    Boot order 1 usb
    boot machine to be flashed with usbstick
    C:\>dir
    C:\>XXXBIOS.exe

  11. Can someone please make me this same boot image with with a size limit of 60mb instead of 31mb. I need a bit more room to contain all the BIOS files for my master plan to work.

  12. @Adam P
    Why don’t you write the image, and then resize the partition to fit your needs? If you are using linux, a simple partition editor is gparted.

    If you are using Windows (also probably Mac), you could use an Ubuntu (or likely any other desktop distro) Install CD to boot up your computer to linux for just one time.

  13. $ bunzip2 FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img.bz2
    $ losetup -o 16384 /dev/loop0 FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img
    $ mkdir image
    $ mount /dev/loop0 image
    Put your stuff to image folder
    $ umount /mnt/image
    $ losetup -d /dev/loop0

    And yes, it’s compatible with memdisk.

  14. Thank you for this!

    I bought a used Dell Latitude E6400 on eBay that had a locked BIOS version A20.
    I was able to unlock it using password generator found online.
    I changed the boot order but completely forget to clear the password. STUPID!!!
    And because I had upgraded the BIOS to version A34, the password I found online didn’t work anymore.

    I tried to downgrade back to A20, but I could not run the EXE file in Windows 10.

    1. download your FreeDOS image file
    2. “unzipped” it
    3. dd if=FreeDOS-1.1-USB-Boot.img of=/dev/sde (*** my USB flash drive was /dev/sde ***)
    4. cp E6400A20.EXE /media/user1/FREEDOS1~1A/ (*** my USB flash drive was mounted there; Linux Mint did it automatically for me)

    The only files on the USB drive were command.com, E6400A20.EXE, kernel.sys

    I booted into FreeDOS and typed E6400A20

    BIOS downgraded.
    Unlocked the BIOS with the old password.
    Cleared the Admin password.

    One thing to note is that on Dells, you have to hold the left CTRL key and then click the OK button. Just clicking on the OK button, does not work.

    Thank you! You saved me!

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