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.
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.
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?
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
@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!
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.
@Janus
No idea. Give it a shot and let us know!
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!
@Trey
Try to disconnect and then reconnect your usb stick.
I had the same problem but that worked for me.
$ 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
I’ve succeeded to write the image under Windows, using the following tools:
7-zip(www.7-zip.org) to extract the image file, and Image Writer for Windows(https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer) to write the image on the USB stick; the written image has booted successfully.
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!
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.
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
@Bob
On the v1.0 post, I link to the original recipe. See pp4.
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.
@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.
$ 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.
@Sven
thanks – saved me frustration…
Can this image be put into a SD Card?
@ewoo
Yes, try it!
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!