[Grml] question related to included Freedos in The GRML distro

[Maurice McCarthy]

Dear Janusz

I'll gladly try to help but it may be a few days
before I can explore this for myself. I have
forwarded your email to the grml list in case any
one there may have a comment also.

Best Wishes
Moss

----- Forwarded message from "Mgr. Janusz Chmiel" <chmiel at phil.muni.cz> -----

Subject: question related to included Freedos in The GRML distro
From: "Mgr. Janusz Chmiel" <chmiel at phil.muni.cz>
Date: Fri, 1 May 2009 12:57:11 +0200
To: Maurice McCarthy <moss at mythic-beasts.com>

Dear syr,

   You have been able to answer all my questions and thank's to You, i were 
able to install GRML to A harddrive, i also deeply understood The parted 
commands and other administrative tasks.

But i would like to ask You for next question.

If i will type
dos
At The GRML live CD boot prompt, free DOS is sucessfully loaded. But please, 
which keys should i press to activate A shell? Because when i wanted to type

a:
or c:

Nothink has happened. Or is there only choice to install free DOS or only 
graphical shell is included?

Is it possible to legally download smartdrv.exe or similar equivalent, which 
installation program for Windows Xp will detect like smartdrv?

Thank You very much for Your answers.

The program
winnt.exe can be used for installing Windows XP from DOS, by using 
setupmgr.exe running from Windows XP which is fully functional, visually 
impaired user can make fully unattended Windows XP installation.

But i Am experiencing methodological problems, for example, i can not boot 
To The FAT32 partition, which is containing installation files prepared by 
using setupmgr.exe application.

I can access this partition by using Windows XP boot diskette or Windows 98 
Se boot diskette, but i can not boot it by using smart boot manager. 
Eventhough i set The FAT32 partition as a primary, which is a condition to 
access this partition from DOS, fortunately, gparted is allowing this, that 
i did not had to use logical partition with FAT32. I could resize existing 
NTFS partition, and in The free space, i could specifi right start and end 
of this FAT32 one. Parted is using reliable and safe algorithms, if user 
knows, what he is doing with this tool.

It is possible to boot DOS if this operating system is being installed by a 
first operating system, in this case, WIndows XP installation program is 
making officially supported activity to support booting betveen DOS or 
Windows XP.

But i want to support visually impaired users, so they could perform 
unattended installation when their instalation of WIndows XP is being 
corrupted.

There are even WEB pages with several DOS boot diskettes, which are having 
included CD ROM Drivers, but i do not know, if those boot disks are legal to 
use.

And there is not many modern computers with floppy drive, and bioses are not 
setup by The way, so flash disk can beused for booting. And my algorithms 
are intended to be fully usable by non sighted users.

If YOu would support me, i would be very glad.

There is awaylable solution, Nlite,

But i Am afraid, that Microsoft will force The author of this program to 
remove it from The Internet, may be, that he consulted licensing issues with 
The Microsoft CORP, because his WEB site and Nlite program is existing for 
many years.

¨His solution is working very reliably, even sound drivers can be integrated 
to The .iso file.

But i would like to support official tools for deploying Windows XP 
installation.

Visually impaired users are not able to use partition manager included in 
Windows XP installation, this tool is also enough to make several 
partitions, but i like parted and Linux, because i can have full control and 
feetback from A screen reader.

Parted is not supporting so many actions like included partition manager in 
Windows Xp installation.



----- End forwarded message -----