#387 write-protection violation attempted ?

[Anonymous]

sorry if this isn't the right spot, havn't posted here before, Getting a write-protection violation attempted error. Using usb-to sata converter , booted off plop , on non usb bios supported old pavillion usb-1.0 but it does boot fast and write's to the disk after about 10-15 fails of running the editor and saving a file , is there a way to pare the error amount down , . Says cannot create temporary file, - stock auto and config from install. Saw posts on the web about changing some line from ide to sata , wasn't specific how to do this ? Any help would be awesome

[Jim Hall]

Can you provide more details? I'm not sure I completely understand what you're seeing.

You mentioned "plop" which I had to look up: apparently it's a "boot manager" of some kind that lets you boot a computer from USB when the computer wouldn't otherwise boot from USB - or maybe it lets you boot from CDROM when your computer doesn't allow booting from CDROM? I'm not entirely clear. Based on your message "booted off plop , on non usb bios supported old pavillion usb-1.0" I think you used "plop" to boot FreeDOS from USB on your HP Pavilion laptop.

(Question: If I understand "plop" correctly, you had to create a "plop" CDROM that then chain booted FreeDOS from USB. Why not just use the FreeDOS LiveCD instead, and boot directly from that?)

You said the error was something like write-protection violation andcouldn't create a temporary file but it would help to report the exact error message you saw.

[Jim Hall]

In general: "couldn't create a temporary file" suggests that FreeDOS wasn't able to write a temporary file, which is necessary when piping commands to each other. If you have a writable drive on this system (with a DOS filesystem) set your TEMP variable to a folder on that drive. For example, if the D: drive is writeable, you might create a directory called TEMP on D: and set the TEMP variable like this:

set TEMP=D:\TEMP

If this is not set, DOS will try to use the current drive to create temporary files when piping commands from one to another. See this page on the wiki for more:
http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/FreeCOM#Command_Line_Syntax

[bob jones]

forced usb issue, linux has this bug too, hates being forced booted, curious if freedos can overcome this , so freedos boots to the usb drive and runs fine - errors , but live dvd and floppy emu won't see the drive. Booting hard drive from live or floppy emu bootmenu boots ide hard drive instead not sure if theres a path change from livedvd image,The stock installed line for temp is, set TEMP=%dosdir%\TEMP, even writing direct in the temp folder spams the errors, than writes the file. Or won't see a drive or dvd than magicly sees after a round of errors. I will try your advice and set temp to another internal drive
del ok.txt
Error writing to drive C: DOS area write-protection violation attempted
(A),bort (I)gnore), (R)etry, (F)ail?
permission denied

[bob jones]

Can I use another drive desination other than C:\ ? I Tried changing auto and config to x: but it complained about not finding command, I did change every instance to X:\ for boot files, but it didn't work . I think the bios is permantly assigning C to ide 1, The usb boot's but is blocked by memory and resources being assigned to IDE 1 C:\ conflicting . I used a solid state sata drive instead of a sdd , tried many different drives , and I can write to the other drives now without error, weird, but C is still write protected. Setting temp to the other drive didn't work,

[fritz.mueller]

Hi, I beg your pardon if I have to say this. Jim, our FreeDOS Guru, asked for more details. I can understand and confirm him.
You start a confusing story anywhere after the middle and expect that all others know and understand the whole story before. This is almost impossible to do. We need step by step.
So could you answer some questions before:
You have a laptop with solid state SATA. OK. Means, the computer was built after ca. 2005. But you did not tell us, which OS(es) are on it, is there a multiboot system on it (which one?) or something else?
Does the laptop run in legacy mode or in UEFI mode?
Reason: FreeDOS only supports FAT12/16/32, not NTFS as in use with modern Win systems or another filesystem as in use with Linux. So you will not be able to write on the HD.
Same problem with legacy / UEFI mode (you can find this option in BIOS).
How old (in about - see above) is the laptop - and which USB version does it use (anywhere I read something about USB1, is this correct?)
What where you trying to do? It is not clear to me. I am even not sure if the USB stick boots FreeDOS or not.
"forced usb issue, linux has this bug too, hates being forced booted" - What do you want to say with this sentence?
Did you plug in an USB device and try to boot from it? Does the BIOS have the possibility to boot from USB at all or is it too old?
Maybe you will now say: What a stupid boy. But keep in mind: Even Deepl, one of the best translation tools refused to translate big parts of your first post to another language! So even this AI was unable to understand you.
I fear that you will not get a good response in this forum if you do not tell the whole story.
We would have to read from the crystal ball.

[bob jones]

Very old computer pav 6330, no usb support by bios
ok, I'm trying to boot the usb drive because all of the ide's are in use 2 dvd's, 2 drives. So trying to force a 5th drive by plop. I learned that part of linux dosen't unload with the chain loader and will make the drive write-protected with a memory conflict. Unless there is a way to manually knock it out of memory , probaly will never work sorry for being confuseing. But hey I love freedos btw, thankyou for keeping dos alive,

[fritz.mueller]

Sorry, but I seems that I cannot really help you. There are several reasons for this:
I ran google for HP pavilion 6330 and found this:
https://www.amazon.de/HP-Pavilion-a6330-F-Desktop-PC/dp/B0010DQFDW
(german, but should not make big differences), was built in about 2008, so it should use SATA HDs, but you talk about IDE HDs. This makes the first difference. The computer should run on Vista (2008) or newer then. IDE supported max. 4 HDs/CDs, whereas SATA offers adding more devices. Vista works with NTFS, so if your boot attempt runs against it, it will not be able to read / write from NTFS.
As you talk about PLOP I assume you have a boot loader installed (I assume the second HD has a Linux on it, but you mentioned nothing). Same problem with ext or another Linux file system.
HP overtook Compaq in 2002. If I remember right, they used and kept special partitions for
checking HDs. I think they were hidden and maybe protected. Maybe you run into one of these old Compaq partitions overtaken by HP?

You can try out ramdrives - they should be writable without problems.

I have an old Acer Laptop from 2005 with a CD drive. FreeDOS live CD boots and works fine from it after changing the boot order by F10 or F12. (HP description says that F10 is used for opening BIOS).
With this laptop I can boot from an USB diskette drive too, but only when the USB diskette drive
was plugged in before switching on the machine. Otherwise it is not found.

There are several ways to make FreeDOS work on a "third HD", but they are not really comfortable - and I assume it is not what you want to do. If you have a third HD, remove the IDE (?) or SATA (?) POWER cable from BOTH HDs, (if you use the power cable you will not have to check which signal cable is on which HD later), add the third HD and use the signal cable of one of your CD drives for the third HD. When the computer really uses IDE HDs (I don't think so) you should not forget to correct master/slave settings on the third HD. Boot up from LiveCD - and it should work and install and have no write problems. Please use FDT2310 or FDT2311 live CD (2311 is not yet published), see:
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/test/
Reason: version 1.3 uses an outdated fdisk that sometimes caused problems.
With FreeDOS fdisk you can create up to 4 primary partitions. Depending on the setting of the
active partition you have the chance to boot from up to 4 partitions (but you always have to change the active partition before). Just for info - this is no bootloader!
Sorry that I have no more ideas.