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How to create a FreeDOS LivePC

Submitted by Kelvin on December 21, 2006 - 6:48pm.

FreeDOS is a free DOS-compatible operating system for IBM-PC compatible systems. FreeDOS is made of up many different, separate programs that act as "packages" to the overall FreeDOS Project.

Since it is a simple operating system, it makes a good exercise for creating a LivePC. Here are the steps:

  1. Download fdfullcd.iso from: here
  2. Start LivePC Engine
  3. Click "Create"
  4. Click "Go to advanced settings windows"
  5. Enter a Title for the LivePC. E.g. "Free DOS"
  6. A Browser window comes up
  7. In Guest OS Type field, select "MS-DOS"
  8. In IDE 0:0, Change the size to something smaller, e.g. 20MB
  9. Click "Remove" to remove IDE 0:1
  10. In IDE 1:0, change the type from cdrom-raw to cdrom-image
  11. Also change the Path from "auto detect" to the path to fdfullcd.iso on your local hard disk
  12. Click "Create"
  13. The newly created LivePC is now added to the LivePC Engine
  14. Click the play button for that LivePC and it will boot the fdfullcd.iso image
  15. Hit Enter to go to FreeDOS installation CD
  16. Select 1 to "Install to harddisk using FreeDOS SETUP"
  17. Select "English"
  18. Select "Prepare the harddisk for FreeDOS 1.0 Final by running XFdisk"
  19. Enter "OK" in XFDisk
  20. Hit Enter and follow the instruction to create the "Primary" partition
  21. Hit Enter again and select "Install Bootmanager"
  22. Hit Enter again and select "New Boot Menu Entry" and keep the partition a name
  23. Hit F3 and follow the instruction to finish the boot partition creation
  24. Reboot the LivePC and when it is booting up, hit "F2" to go to the BIOS
  25. In the PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility screen, select the "Boot" Tab
  26. Go to the Hard Drive entry and hit "-" to make the CDROM boot before it
  27. Hit "F10" to save and exit
  28. Once you are done using FreeDOS, hit Ctrl-Alt will get your mouse pointer back
  29. Select the Player pull-down menu, select "Trouble Shoot," and select "Power off and exit"
  30. If you not want to mount the fdfullcd.iso image, click "Configure" in the extended menu for this LivePC and remove the cdrom-image name.
  31. If you want to share this LivePC, click "package" in the extended menu and follow the instruction.
  32. Now the fdfullcd.iso is boot again
  33. Enter 1 to "Continue to boot FreeDOS from CD-ROM"
  34. Enter 1 to "Install to harddisk using FreeDOS SETUP"
  35. Follow the instruction to install FreeDOS onto the harddisk
  36. After the instruction, reboot the LivePC
  37. While it is booting, hit "F2" to go to the BIOS again
  38. This time, change the boot sequence to boot the Hard Drive before the CD-ROM
  39. Hit F10 to exit and boot
  40. Select FREEDOS to boot
  41. Select 3 to boot to FREEDOS