Three things are needed. Boot from a floppy disk, run “fdisk /mbr”to make sure you have a good master boot record. Then run fidsk interactively and check to make sure yout partition is marked active. Then reboot and run“sys C:” to put a boot sector on your partition.

douglar wrote on 2024-07-06, 19:37:

Three things are needed. Boot from a floppy disk, run “fdisk /mbr”to make sure you have a good master boot record. Then run fidsk interactively and check to make sure yout partition is marked active. Then reboot and run“sys C:” to put a boot sector on your partition.

Thank you. However, I have no way to boot from a floppy disk and still access my compact flash card since the card needs to be in my USB card reader.

doomeyes wrote on 2024-07-06, 19:56:

douglar wrote on 2024-07-06, 19:37:

Three things are needed. Boot from a floppy disk, run “fdisk /mbr”to make sure you have a good master boot record. Then run fidsk interactively and check to make sure yout partition is marked active. Then reboot and run“sys C:” to put a boot sector on your partition.

Thank you. However, I have no way to boot from a floppy disk and still access my compact flash card since the card needs to be in my USB card reader.

Some people have been able to put a master boot record and a boot sector on a CF using rufus or winimage, but I don’t know if I can walk you through that process.

douglar wrote on 2024-07-06, 23:56:

doomeyes wrote on 2024-07-06, 19:56:

douglar wrote on 2024-07-06, 19:37:

Three things are needed. Boot from a floppy disk, run “fdisk /mbr”to make sure you have a good master boot record. Then run fidsk interactively and check to make sure yout partition is marked active. Then reboot and run“sys C:” to put a boot sector on your partition.

Thank you. However, I have no way to boot from a floppy disk and still access my compact flash card since the card needs to be in my USB card reader.

Some people have been able to put a master boot record and a boot sector on a CF using rufus or winimage, but I don’t know if I can walk you through that process.

I am familiar with using Rufus, balenaEtcher, and WinImage for creating images. Could I just find and download a DOS image and use that to get the MBR on the CF card? Thank you.

I suggest you just do a low-level copy from the 512mb to 1gb card, then extend the partition to cover 1gb.
Use HDD Raw Copy Tool from HDDGuru to make the said low-level copy, then open Win11 disk management and resize the partition to become 1GB instead of 512mb.

wbahnassi wrote on 2024-07-08, 21:59:

I suggest you just do a low-level copy from the 512mb to 1gb card, then extend the partition to cover 1gb.
Use HDD Raw Copy Tool from HDDGuru to make the said low-level copy, then open Win11 disk management and resize the partition to become 1GB instead of 512mb.

Thanks for this suggestion. As soon as my new compact flash card arrives, I will try this and share the results. Thank you.

doomeyes wrote on 2024-07-15, 18:18:

wbahnassi wrote on 2024-07-08, 21:59:

I suggest you just do a low-level copy from the 512mb to 1gb card, then extend the partition to cover 1gb.
Use HDD Raw Copy Tool from HDDGuru to make the said low-level copy, then open Win11 disk management and resize the partition to become 1GB instead of 512mb.

Thanks for this suggestion. As soon as my new compact flash card arrives, I will try this and share the results. Thank you.

I was able to successfully copy the compact flash card using HDD Raw Copy as you suggested. A resizing of the partition did not work, however. The Pocket 8086 would not boot up to DOS after resizing it. Instead of resizing it, I just made a separate partition and that worked. When I used this new compact flash card in the Pocket 8086, I typed D: and it went to this new partition as a new drive where I could put my files.

Right, did you try accessing the HDD contents on the 8086 after the resize? I wonder if it's just the boot data that didn't make it or the entire contents became unreadable. If it's the former, a SYS C: could bring it back.

512mb is a huge amount of space for a machine of this power. Forgive my curiosity, but I am wondering what you are filling it with to need more... I am due to receive my Pocket 8086 today. I am excited to try things on it