Recent changes to support-requests

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Henrik Carlqvist — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 06:37:34 -0000

The main purpose of DOS FDISK is to create partitions, ms-sys cannot do that. There are other free tools for that like Linux fdisk, cfdisk parted or gparted.

However, ms-sys is capable of doing the equivalent of DOS "FDISK /mbr", that is writing master boot records. The master boot record consists of the first 512 bytes of a device and only part of those 512 bytes are the code to boot, in the MBR you also have the DOS partition table. Ms-sys does not alter or create the partition table.

The fact that you are asking these questions indicates to me that ms-sys is not a tool I would recommend to you. Passing the wrong arguments to ms-sys can easily wipe all data from some disk that you consider important.

Again, to make something boot you will need an operating system. Whatever operating system you choose will probably give you a more friendly user interface to make it bootable than ms-sys.

If you are unable to burn and boot your ISO from optical media you would probably be able to boot it in some virtual machine like qemu. You could also give your USB device to qemu, so you would probably be able to create a USB stick that is bootable at least in qemu. However, the fact that you have made a USB stick bootable in some real or virtual machine does not mean that it will be bootable in every machine out there. Some machines only want to boot in UEFI mode, some machines are not able to boot from USB at all.

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Bolek Tusk — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 23:02:56 -0000

Basically I want something which provides equivalent of DOS FDISK.

I have PC-DOS 7 but only as an ISO. That includes FDISK but I don't have anything to run it from.

Will Ms-sys create a boot record? And if so on what sort of device and how big?

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Henrik Carlqvist — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 18:57:04 -0000

No, I do not have any contact with the people who has contributed code. Most contributors have only added some single feature that they needed for themselves. It is not like we would be some group that continues to work together.

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Henrik Carlqvist — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 18:55:32 -0000

Sorry, ms-sys is not enough to create a bootable USB stick. To become bootable, you will need to install some kind of operating system on that USB stick. Whatever operating system that you choose will most likely provide you with all tools needed to make it bootable. Ms-sys is only a tool to identify and fix boot records. Once booted, boot records will need something to chain to. The master boot record might need to pass on to a partition boot record (so far ms-sys will be able to provide both for you), but then the partition boot record will need to pass on to something like IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS.

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Bolek Tusk — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 07:13:37 -0000

I want to create a bootable USB stick to perform a BIOS upgrade on a ThinkPad X61.

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Bolek Tusk — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 07:11:07 -0000

Do you have contact with these people?

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Henrik Carlqvist — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 06:31:37 -0000

What options you need to use completely depends upon what you are going to boot and what you are going to use to boot it. First of all, ms-sys in itself is not capable of creating a "bootable disk", you will need some kind of operating system to boot. Next, ms-sys is only capable of writing the kind of boot records usable by legacy BIOS computers, if your system has UEFI boot only, ms-sys will not be to any use for you.

The initial and still main intention of ms-sys is to be a Linux tool to make Microsoft Windows installations bootable.

What are you trying to do? What did you try? What was the outcome? What outcome did you expect?

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Bolek Tusk — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:27:17 -0000

I can compile it just want to know what options I need to use and how do I check whether it has worked properly.

I could try it on Debian first if I know what I should expect.

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Henrik Carlqvist — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 17:44:54 -0000

Sorry, I have no experience from FreeBSD myself. Others have contributed all the code for OpenBSD and FreeBSD.

#20 ms-sys vs syslinux

Bolek Tusk — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 13:06:11 -0000

I have only just registered and am trying to find some help for creating a DOS bootable device using FreeBSD.

I can compile ms-sys without trouble but cannot manage to create a DOS bootable USB stick.

Any help would be appreciated.

An example would be welcomed.