PupWinQE no suitable partitions to save to

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rossnixon
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue 18 Apr 2006, 21:10

PupWinQE no suitable partitions to save to

#1 Post by rossnixon »

I am running Puppy 2.15 using PupWinQE, however when I shutdown I get "no suitable partitions to save to". I want to save my network and other settings.
How do I get my FAT32 partition mounted? A Qemu switch perhaps? Or inside Puppy?

Bruce B

#2 Post by Bruce B »

rossnixon,

One of the problems of including your filesystem read-write is potential for corruption.

Another problem is how to get files in and out of your Puppy. The inability to do that makes the Puppy devalued.

One way to get files in and out is an FTP server.

But what I'd like to try is a RAM drive. If things did by chance get messed up in a RAM disk, it wouldn't corrupt your hard drive.

You might try making a ramdrive, then mounting using the syntax used for mounting a cdrom.

Suppose we want a 19 mb ramdrive

(1) locate ramdrive.sys

dir /b/s c:\ramdrive.sys

It's likely to be in c:\windows\command

(2) open config.sys with your editor

add this line to the file below himem.sys if the himem line exists
if not just put it in config.sys

device=c:\path\to\ramdrive.sys /e 18920

(3) reboot computer

verify the ramdrive exists, it should be the next available drive letter

(4) try the syntax used by qemu for a cdrom drive

if it works, it works, if not then we find another workaround

----------------------

Using the RAM drive (if it mounts properly)

If you want to add files to Puppy, copy those files to the RAM drive with Windows File Manager. Then copy them within Puppy using one of its managers.

If you want to copy files from Puppy to hard disk copy them to the RAM drive. Then outside qemu, copy the files to their permanent location.

The safety factor is if a RAM drive gets corrupted, its the last thing you need to worry about, because it only exists on a session by session basis.

UPDATE

I was searching around and found that the /.// syntax is NT only. Maybe something like -hdb e: where e: is the ramdrive

JaDy
Posts: 159
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 15:59
Location: SE PA USA
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#3 Post by JaDy »

What's your host OS for QEMU? Windows XP, NT, 98, etc.?
Felicitations & Facilitations, Rev. John G. Derrickson
Wrote fast. Goofs happen. Tell me.

Bruce B

#4 Post by Bruce B »

JaDy wrote:What's your host OS for QEMU? Windows XP, NT, 98, etc.?
Rossnixons hosts is Windows 98

My host is Linux

And there are some qemu differences between Linux qemu and Windows qemu

BTW qemu 0.9.0 is out now and available as Windows binaries

rossnixon
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue 18 Apr 2006, 21:10

#5 Post by rossnixon »

My host is Win98, but my HDD also has an ext3 partition for Ubuntu. Should Puppy be able to find it as it boots up?

Bruce B

#6 Post by Bruce B »

rossnixon wrote:My host is Win98, but my HDD also has an ext3 partition for Ubuntu. Should Puppy be able to find it as it boots up?
No, it shouldn't be able to find the FAT partition either. It's like a computer running inside a computer, but not knowing that it's being hosted by an operating system running in a computer. Anyway, you get what I mean (I hope)

It's the way qemu emulation works on your computer with your command line switches.

rossnixon
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue 18 Apr 2006, 21:10

#7 Post by rossnixon »

I've tried two ramdrive programs.
1. Ramdrive.sys causes "VFAT device initialization failure" as Win98 tries to start up. The ramdrive is there, I can change to it in DOS. Googled for fix, but none of the suggestions applied to me.
2. XMSDSK causes computer to freeze before Windows starts.

I haven't checked if a USB drive is an option. Would that be easier than FTP?

Bruce B

#8 Post by Bruce B »

rossnixon wrote:I've tried two ramdrive programs.
1. Ramdrive.sys causes "VFAT device initialization failure" as Win98 tries to start up. The ramdrive is there, I can change to it in DOS. Googled for fix, but none of the suggestions applied to me.
2. XMSDSK causes computer to freeze before Windows starts.

I haven't checked if a USB drive is an option. Would that be easier than FTP?
I've not had problems with ramdrive.sys

Maybe it NEEDS the himem.sys written in the config.sys file prior to the ramdrive.sys line.

----------------

For using XMSDSK which is better.

Load XMSDSK with the /t switch in autoexec.bat not config.sys. The /t switch makes Wndows more happy.

Also check dates and versions of XMSDSK, should be about Aug, 1998, version 1.91

XMSDSK /? for information.

Bruce B

#9 Post by Bruce B »

PS if you had a remote FTP service that would be easy.

I don't know about USB and Windows 98 and Puppy as guest. You'll have to play on your own with that.

rossnixon
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue 18 Apr 2006, 21:10

#10 Post by rossnixon »

Bruce B wrote:PS if you had a remote FTP service that would be easy.
Not sure exactly what you mean, but I found this free basic service http://www.drivehq.com/ftp/?refID=49052&srcID=300030
Why is this useful? Won't I still have to do several steps to configure the networking config in Puppy before it can do FTP?

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