Installing FreeDOS into Parallels 12

This might just be a new question or an old one regarding FreeDOS, but I hope someone can help. I am trying to setup a VM running FreeDOS in Parallels Desktop 12. I already have a WindowsXP VM running and it's working fine. I need this old stuff for some work programs that will not run above XP and thought, rather than buying multiple XP licenses I would set up several FreeDOS VM's with different configurations for my old software.

I downloaded the FreeDOS image file (fd11src.iso file - 40.8 Mb) and have it in my downloads folder.
In Parallels I select NEW and it brings me to the New Virtual Machine window. Since FreeDOS is not listed in the "Free Systems" section, I selected "Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file". Doing that brings me to the next screen where it asks for the Installation Image. When I locate manually my FreeDOS file (fd11scr.iso) the Parallels Wizard returns the message "Unable to detect operating system". So what am I doing wrong? I have downloaded the ".iso" file twice and both do the same thing. The FreeDOS site shows the file to be 40 Mb so I think I have a good file.

Other discussions talk about setting the boot order to CD, HD then Floppy but when I go into the Parallels tools section to do this it's all grayed out. I did set up a VM without an operating system, but now it tries to boot from the IDE drive and fails.

I see on other threads that others are running FreeDOS so I am hopeful. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Hi @WaltR
Try the below steps and keep us posted
1. Mount the Free DOS image(.iso) . This link will help you to mount the image file
2. Change the boot order to CD/DVD.
3. Stop the virtual machine if it is running and start it.

 

Hi Guna,
So here's how it's going. I have my VM created without any OS. I found I was able to change the Location setting and the Boot Order but only after I Stopped the VM. Thats OK. So with the CD/DVD drive booting first and pointed to my FreeDOS disk image (fd11scr.iso) I started the VM and got to a blue window with options "Install to hard disk" "Create drive C:" "Boot from system hard disk" and "Boot from diskette". I selected the first "Install to hard disk".
Now I get a message "SETUP wasn't abel to locate any disks to install FreeDOS 1.1 from." And gives me an option to run FDISK or Load driver for optical units.
When I choose to run FDISK it asked me if I wanted to use large disk (FAT32) support? I said Yes.
I was then in the FDISK menu and selected "Create DOS partition or Logical DOS Drive"
Next menu I selected "Create Primary DOS Partition. I get back a listing with a message at the end saying "No space to create a DOS partition"

I tried copying my image file over to a CD and re-pointed the CD/DVD option to that CD drive.
All the same results.
Any idea where to go from here?
Thanks for your help.

 

Hi, WaltR.
Please make sure that all storage devices has virtual IDE interface.
Is CD/DVD driver loaded successfully (there is an option 'c' exists)?
What you get if you press 4 in FDISK, i.e. list partitions.
Looks like you have created a primary partition already. That is why you got "No space to create a DOS partition" message in FDISK.

 

Hi,
When I press 4 in FDISK I see one partition "C: 1 Status A Type PRI DOS no volume label Mbytes 2048 Usage 100%"
No other partitions listed.

I'm not sure what you mean by "all storage devices has virtual IDE interface". All I did to generate the VM was to select New VM in Parallels and when FreeDOS image file could not be loaded, I chose Proceed without OS to create the VM. Then I have been working from there. Does Parallels map devices as IDE devices?

 

Please share a few screenshot with us, we'll check and help you out.

 

"C: 1 Status A Type PRI DOS no volume label Mbytes 2048 Usage 100%" for me this means you have created partition successfully.
Now, what happens when you see " And gives me an option to run FDISK or Load driver for optical units."
Try to press "c" and load driver for cdrom, then there should be a string:
"Press 1 to start installing the FreeDOS 1.1 operating system", press 1 and installation begins.

 

Thank you for your help. I have pieced together screen shots of what is happening (or not happening) and have put them into a pdf document that I am uploading to this post. I had to split it into two parts (I think because of size) and they are marked "-1" & "-2". I hope you can glean more info from them then I can.
Thank you.

PS: I did try to press "c" in the FDISK menu but it just flashed some text really quickly and then back to the menu. So I think it tried to run something that either does not exist or can not be run. Hope that helps.

 

So, what was the result. I successfully installed FreeDOS from the specified media.
But, please make sure both virtual CD and virtual HDD are on IDE BUS (you can find in VM configuration editor under "Advanced settings" on a device's setup page).

 

Installation is quite straight forward, but the only "gotcha" could be where it will require you to move "CD/DVD" down below "Hard Drive" in Configuration -> Boot Order after the initial partitioning phase. After a reboot following the partitioning the installation will proceed without a hitch...

However, it appears that FreeDOS is also having trouble with Parallels 13: https://forum.parallels.com/threads/freedos-1-2-hangs-on-parallels-13-in-fdimples.341972/

 

What you get if you press 4 in FDISK, i.e. list partitions.
Looks like you have created a primary partition already. That is why you got "No space to create a DOS partition" message in FDISK.

 

Yeah, this is an old thread, but I'm reviving it now because I just installed FreeDOS 1.2 into Parallels 14. The install went well, but I'm now at the point where I want to copy files over from my Mac's HDD to the FreeDOS VM. I don't have a floppy drive, and I can't see how shared folders are possible, so I guess I have to configure networking in the VM. There are instructions for doing so in VirtualBox, so I'm guessing it's pretty much the same thing, but is it? Parallels seems to have a "smoother" way of doing many things, so maybe I'm just missing the obvious?

 

There are no parallels tools for any DOS. So you need to setup network or use parallels mounter, I guess it is able to mount virtual disk with FAT in read/write mode

 

It may there FAT for sure if you're gonna for virtual disk mount. BTW Thanks . i was looking for this