Help getting some DOS installed

S

sammaffei

Bit poster
I've got quite a few old DOS games that I would like to get running under Parrallels Mac.

I've have had nothing but failure with attempts to install FreeDOS. And, I don't have any access to MS-DOS 6.22.

Has anyone had any success in doing this? I would like to play my PC versions of TIE Fighter or X-Wing once again.
 
DOS Games

sammaffei said:
I've got quite a few old DOS games that I would like to get running under Parrallels Mac.

I've have had nothing but failure with attempts to install FreeDOS. And, I don't have any access to MS-DOS 6.22.

Has anyone had any success in doing this? I would like to play my PC versions of TIE Fighter or X-Wing once again.
Click to expand...

I suggest you try DOSBox. This should have much better support for DOS games.

Pierce_Brosnan.jpg
 
I'm having the same problems.

I'd like to install MSDOS 6.22 and Win 3.1 but the development team for parallels for Mac seemed to make an incredibly small minded decision to provide no real floppy drive support (I tried using a USB floppy that OS X recognizes just fine, parallels has no idea it's there).

It would seem any floppy installation of an OS is not possible under parallels since they don't support a 'real' floppy drive on the Mac and their image tool software just plain doesn't work. You cannot 'trick' parallels using multiple images because once you stop an image connection it won't restart unless it's a boot image.

All in all I guess they (the parallels development team) did something right. You can install XP without a single problem...pretty much useless in a dual boot scenerio unless you just want to run office applications.

Maybe once parallels gets out of 'beta' stage for the Mac they will provide some sort of support for multiple floppy installation of OSs.
 
I installed Win2k using boot floppy images (all of them) from the CD, extracted and appropriately renamed. When it asked for the next one, I disconnected the virtual drive, changed the image spec, reconnected it, and hit enter in the vm.

You can have as many boot floppies as you need. Just get one bootable image (google freedos) mount it (as data) in your VM, and replace the files with whatever you need. If you need it to be bootable, make sure the file names you need to load at boot mach the originals.
 
Re: Joem

Just get one bootable image (google freedos) mount it (as data) in your VM

That's fine. But, the reason I started this thread was to get help in installing a DOS (freedos) preferred.

Do any DOS experts here (who are looking for a challenge) want to give it a go and give a step by step?

I would really appreciate the help.
 
sammaffei said:
Just get one bootable image (google freedos) mount it (as data) in your VM

That's fine. But, the reason I started this thread was to get help in installing a DOS (freedos) preferred.

Do any DOS experts here (who are looking for a challenge) want to give it a go and give a step by step?

I would really appreciate the help.
Click to expand...

Just connect the freedos floppy image, turn on the VM and you're there. No installation required.
 
So how do you make floppy images from real floppies?

I tried OS X Disk Utility - Images are no good to Parallels.

I tried the Parallels tool - Does not see a floppy drive (only CD and HD)

I can't install DOS... and I have the friggin disks.

=)
 
John the Geek said:
So how do you make floppy images from real floppies?
=)
Click to expand...

As I said yesterday:

Joem said:
You can have as many boot floppies as you need. Just get one bootable image (google freedos) mount it (as data) in your VM, and replace the files with whatever you need. If you need it to be bootable, make sure the file names you need to load at boot mach the originals.
Click to expand...

Scroll down for the entire message.
 
Ok.

So clue me in... How do I take a floppy disk placed in a USB drive and turn it into a bootable floppy image for parallels. And no... "go find a bootable floppy image first" is not how the answer should begin.

Once you mount a floppy image and begin to navigate it you create hidden files on the disk and that makes it next to impossible to copy all of the files over from a very tight floppy. There would not be enough room on the disk for those situations.

I'm not looking for a hack or loophole. I asked a very valid question.

Do you know of an application that will take a real floppy disk and make it into an image for Parallels to boot from.

Thank you.
 
Ok, I solved the problem myself.

When you use Apple's Disk Utility to make floppy images from a real floppy, it uses "Apple UDIF read-only Media" format, which Parallels cannot read. To fix this you select the image, go to the Images menu and choose Convert...

Name the image and choose the read/write image format with no encryption. Then rename the file to .img instead of Apple's default .dmg and you're good to go. A new floppy image is made exactly as you need it to be.

All is well and DOS is installing as I type.

=)
 
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