AO486 - Flynn eXoDos Collection. V5 Help

[steamybeast]

Hello all,

I have downloaded exodos v5. I then used the exodos converter 0.8. Got a few errors that seemed game related. I moved the contents of the created converted folder on a fat32 vhd 127gb. I copied the whole converted folder to my mister external hardrive. I can mount the vhd and see my folders and contents but I can get anything to boot.

What do I do next as the online videos are confusing. Im guessing i want to get this Vhd booted. Im a bit of a noob with all this.

Thanks in advance.

[Mellified]

What you've got is a very nice hard drive image. That doesn't boot the computer to DOS however. You'll need to make or find a DOS boot disk, copy it to the MiSTer, then configure the ao486 core to use it.

You may want to join the Classic Gaming Discord for more and interactive help.

https://top.gg/servers/418895913210216448

[steamybeast]

Thank you.

i'm using this "IDE 0-0 BOOT-DOS98.vhd", provided in Flynns pack, in the first vhd slot, and my vhd with the ExoDos collection in the second one. However nothing seems to happen.

[thera34]

@steamybeast: Have you also copied boot0.rom and boot1.rom into the media/fat/a0486 folder , as per https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer instructions here ?
Does your a0486 core work with other vhds ?

[syntax_x]

Sorry to tell you but you have to remake the games VHD.

When using Flynns 98BOOT VHD you need to make sure your GAMES VHD has a small 15mb partition at the beginning to act as a STUB.
viewtopic.php?t=1531&start=25

[flynnsbit]

You can also remove the ASSIGN command that is in the autoexec.bat file. What that is doing is allowing DOS to assign a cd drive to D: (The stub 15mb partition) as you cannot control that like you can in DOSBOX. 2. it uses ASSIGN to take back over that D: drive and map it to the F: drive (the actual CD drive mapped in mister)
You end up with
C: OS
D: CD Drive
E: Secondary partion for games
F: real CD Drive

This order is not possible on a real machine or MiSTer without this little hack.


If you remove it, then you will end up with a D: drive for games, and E: for CD. But that will cause other problems. Explanation:

eXoDOS is by default configured to look for CD games on D: so all scripts are using that. That was a significant challenge to fix so instead we are tricking real dos (ao486) to allow for D: to still be the CD. You can read about that fun if you care by reviewing the dos disk algorithm. Here under "Order of assignments" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_letter_assignment

You would have the exact same issue if you tried to use the exodos collection on a real native DOS machine. Good news is you can use the same pack generation and trick on a real machine.