PcDOS utility diskette:

This is a stand-alone PcDOS boot diskette which I have put together for
doing maintainence work on newer systems. It's main features are:

 - Selectable support for IDE/SATA ATAPI CD/DVD
 - Selectable support for USB mass storage devices
 - Loadable RAMdisk for non-intrusive working storage
 - Good collection of general commands and utilities.
 - Focus on tools to get data ON/OFF the system via Network, Serial (COM)
   or Parallel (LPT) connections.
 - Enough free RAM to run Norton GHOST 2003

This utility diskette can be used as a directly bootable diskette, or as
a floppy-boot image for a bootable CD (I use "MagicISO" to place this and
several other useful bootable floppies onto a single CD).


File provided in this archive:

	PCDOS.BIN	Binary image of PcDOS boot diskette
	XDISK.COM	Utility to read/write physical diskette to/from binary image
	DSKIMG.EXE	Utility to extract individual files from the image.
	*.TXT		Additional documentation on commands/utilities.


Content of boot diskette root:

	IBMBIO.COM		PcDOS - system file (hidden)
	IBMDOS.COM		PcDOS - system file (hidden)
	COMMAND.COM		PcDOS - command interpreter
	CONFIG.SYS		System configuration (has startup menu)
	AUTOEXEC.BAT	System configuration
	HIMEM.SYS		IBM DOS - high memory driver
	UIDEJR.SYS		IDE/SATA ATAPI CD/DVD driver
	USBASPI.SYS		USB to ASPI device driver
	DI1000DD.SYS	ASPI mass-storage driver
	SHSUCDX.COM		CD/DVD file system driver
	XMSDSK.EXE		Dynamically loadable RAMdisk
	MINSTALL.EXE	Menu install utility
	PKTDRV.EXE		Packet driver install utility


When you boot the disk, you will first be greeted with a CONFIG.SYS
startup menu, from this menu you can select if you wish to load CD/DVD
and/or USB mass storage drivers:

	1. No additional drivers
	2. CD/DVD
	3. USB mass-storage
	4. CD/DVD + USB mass-storage

Then, DOS and the selected drivers load and MINSTALL runs. MINSTALL shows
you the packages which are available to install, with an indicator:

	'+' means the whole package will be installed.
	'-' means some of the files in the package will be installed.
	<blank> means none of the files in the package will be installed.

Use the cursor keys to hilight a package, and press F1 to select all files
within it, F2 to deselect all files within it, or ENTER to bring up a menu
of individual files in the package. When you have finished, press F10 to
continue.

MINSTALL now presents you with a RAMdisk size - you can modify the size using
the keys indicated. When you are ready, press F10 - MINSTALL will create a
RAMdisk and unpack the selected files onto it.

The following packages/files are available from MINSTALL:

---- "Standard DOS commands" ----

	ATTRIB.COM		Display/change file attributes
	CHKDSK.COM		Check/Repair a disk structure
	DEBUG.COM		System Debugger
	DELTREE.EXE		Remove directory tree
	DOSKEY.COM		Command line editor
	FC.EXE			Compare two files
	FDISK32.COM		Hard disk configuration
	FIND.COM		Search for a text string(s) in file(s)
	FORMAT.COM		Format a disk (FAT)
	FORMAT32.COM	Format a disk (FAT32)
	LABEL.COM		Change/Remove volume label
	MEM.EXE			Display system memory use
	MODE.COM		Configure system devices
	MORE.COM		Paginate output
	MOUSE.COM		Mouse driver
	MOVE.EXE		Move/Rename files/directories
	SUBST.EXE		Associate path to drive letter
	SYS.COM			Make disk bootable
	TREE.COM		Display directory structure
	XCOPY.COM		Enhanced COPY command

---- "Misc. general utilities" ----

	BATUTIL.COM		Utilities for "BATCH" files
	DUS.COM			Disk Usage Summary by directory
	EDT.EXE			Text editor
	FDIR.COM		Enter commands into directory display
	HEXED.COM		Hexidecimal (binary) editor
	LF.EXE			List files by extension
	SYNC.COM		Synchronize two directory trees (smart copy)
	TFB.COM			Tsr File Browser (viewer)
	UNZIP.EXE		Unpack .ZIP archives
	WDIR.COM		Walk command through a directory
	XC.COM			Screen oriented compare
	XF.COM			Screen oriented find
	XT.COM			Search for files in directory tree

---- "Data transfer utilities" ----

	DDLINK.COM		Transfer via COM, LPT or NETwork
	PC100.COM		Serial terminal, XMODEM & ASCII transfers
	MAE.COM			Encodes/Decodes to/from printable ASCII
	XMODEM.COM		XMODEM module for PC100 (can use stand-alone)

---- "Networking utilities" ----

	TFTP.COM		Trivial File Transfer Protocol client/server
	DHCP.COM		Dynamic Host Configuration for FTP, TELNET and HTGET
	FTP.EXE			File Transfer Protocol client
	HTGET.EXE		HTTP file transfer
	TELNET.EXE		Telnet client
	MTCP.CFG		Configuration file for FTP, TELNET
	PCINIC.COM		Utility to "find" PCI network cards
	PCINIC.DAT		Database of vendors/devices for PCINIC
	WATTCP.CFG		Configuration file for HTGET

---- "Long filename & NTFS support" ----

	DOSLFN.COM		TSR for Long-Filename support
	CP437UNI.TBL	Code-Page file required by DOSLFN
	NTFSDOS.EXE		Access NTFS partition (read only)

DDLINK, TFTP, DHCP, FTP and TELNET access the network via a "packet driver"
which is specific to your network card. I have provided a collection of about
100 different packet drivers which cover most common NICs (and a few uncommon
ones) in PKTDRV.EXE - See PKTDRV.TXT

Most of the commands are fairly self explainatory, and many of them can be
requested to provide a summary of usage, try:

  <command>            <= No arguments
  <command> ?
  <command> /?
  <command> /H

I have provided additional documentation for some of the more complex commands
in the .TXT files included in this archive. NOTE: In many (most) cases I've
trimmed the packages to reduce size - the documents may reference files which
are not present on this disk, however you can obtain these from the original
archives.


Transferring data:

One of the hardest things about recovering a system is that it can be very
difficult to get files on and off a modern system when a network capable OS
is not running. Here are a few ideas on ways to move data around:

- If you system has a FAT16 or FAT32 partition, you should be able to read
  and write it from PcDOS7. You may also be able to use the NTFSDOS utility
  to gain read-only access to an NTFS partiion on your system.

- Put the data on a USB drive, and boot with USB mass storage support.
  This works on a LOT of PC chipsets, but unfortinately not all of them.
  NOTE: USB drive should be connected when the system boots.

- Burn the data to a CD/DVD, and boot with CD/DVD support
  + This can be slightly tricky if you have booted from a CD because your
    boot disk is on the CD. As long as you have copied the commands you
    wish to use to a RAMdisk you should be OK.
  + You may wish to take A:\ out of your PATH to avoid disk errors when
    you enter unrecognized commands.
  + When you re-insert the boot CD, you may need to enter Control-C at
    the DOS prompt to get it to properly reload the drive.
  + NOTE: If your system has a SATA CD/DVD drive, then you may need to
    go into BIOS setup and configure it for IDE emulation mode.

- Network: Getting the network working can be tricky.
  + I've provided PCINIC, a small scanner to find PCI ethernet card Type,
    Address and Irq - just run 'PCINIC' to see if it finds your card.
  + Use PKTDRV to extract the appropriate packet driver for your nic.
  + Install the packet driver:
    + Normally you have to specify the packet software interrupt (0x60)
      eg: driver_name 0x60
    + You may also have to specify the hardware interrupt and I/O address
      eg: NE2000 0x60 11 0x6C00   (NE2000 nic, interrupt 11 address 6C00)
    Run the driver with no arguments to see the expected syntax.
  + If you can't get your mainboard network interface to work, consider
    putting in a PCI card - I keep a few NE2000 compatible PCI nics for
    this purpose.

  If you can get a packet driver working, then you can perform standard
  IP networking with:
    TFTP as either a client or server.
    + You can use SWSVPKT or DOSBOX to run TFTP (client or server) in
      windows - See the "WINDOWS" section of DDLINK.TXT for details.
    + For a native windows TFTP server, try "pumpkin".
    FTP as a client.
    TELNET as a client.
    HTGET as a client.

  You can also use DDLINK which is a little nicer because it gives a split
  screen menu interface and can copy entire directory subtrees. But it needs
  a DDLINK server running on the remote system (or on the local system with
  a client on the remote) - see DDLINK.TXT for details.

  If you are using this boot disk to run GHOST (*), you can use GHOSTs peer-
  to-peer networking. If you start GHOST with a packet driver loaded, a "peer-
  to-peer" menu will be offered. Run a SLAVE on the system to host the images,
  and MASTER on the system to be saved/restored.
  + SLAVE knows how to access NTFS drives (even when booted in DOS)
  + GHOST "does something" to the packet driver which makes it often fail
    if you try to make a second connection - exit GHOST and unload/reload
    the packet driver.
  (*) GHOST will not fit on this disk, you can swap to a second floppy with
      GHOST after you have booted, or copy it on to the RAMdisk by utilizing
      any of the transfer methods listed here.

- If the system has a real LPT or COM port (not USB devices), then you
  can use DDLINK. This can be tricky as you will need a system running
  DOS or Win9x to host DDLINK on the other end (COM may work with 2K/XP,
  but slowly). You may be able to boot this disk on another system and
  access data as described above.
  NOTE: When you have a choice - LPT is much faster than COM

- If none of the above can be made to work, then your "last resort" is
  to format a hard drive with FAT16 or FAT32 and attach it to the system.
  Many systems have the CD driver on a separate interface, which makes
  it a good cable to attach a slave hard drive.


Credits:

PcDOS files were extracted from "IBM ServerGuide Scripting Toolkit" which
is available (free) from: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/management/sgstk/

FTP.EXE and TELNET.EXE are from from Mike Brutmans mTCP suite of DOS internet
tools - the complete suite and it's documentation is available (free)
from: www.brutman.com/mTCP

Many of the packet drivers installed by PKTDRV.EXE are from Russ Nelsons
"crynwar" packet driver collection - the full collection and packet driver
documentation is available (free) from: www.crynwar.com

UIDEJR, SHSUCDX, USPASPI, DI1000DD, XMSDSK, DOSLFN, NTFSDOS and HTGET are
all from packages available (free) via the internet. Search for these terms
to find the original distributions.

