Dodgy laptop + weak suggestion of efficacy of a BIOS update
 ==> wasting time trying to find a good way of updating the
BIOS even though the files come with a DOS executable to do
the update.  Extra reason for not doing a quick temp installation
of some DOS-family system is that the laptop's problem is 
that it turns off after not too many minutes.

[Note: it soon turned out that the turning off /was/ just 
 simple overheating, thanks to huge amounts of cat and dog
 hair accumulated in a pad over the heat-exchanger!  No 
 need for the BIOS update, as usual, but it's always the
 thing that everyone's recommending...
]

After all kinds of twaddle about ways to bodge together 
the usual plethora of overly-specific windos programs, a 
sensible site was found offering a few commands to download
a freeDOS image and copy grub files to it:
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/FreeDOS_Flash_Drive 
(copied below).

This is handy not only in providing a quick freeDOS bootable,
but also in showing me (ignorant up till now about all these 
modern changes in bootability of recent computers) that bootable
USB `disks' are just bootable in the normal way, i.e. they're
not like `el torito' CD images, but the BIOS treats them as 
real disks just as the OSs do.  So, the scope should be much 
wider than shown here, extending to copying a full gentoo system...

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Almost every BIOS/firmware update needs DOS to work; this article aims 
to explain how to create a USB flash drive, used to boot on FreeDOS and 
run those medieval programs. (You will need to have a motherboard BIOS 
capable of booting from a USB device. Some may also need to enable this 
option from within their motherboard's BIOS setup screen as well.) 

== Requirements 
There are several packages you'll need for this, sys-boot/syslinux, 
which provides various bootloaders (Syslinux, PXELinux, etc.), 
sys-boot/grub, The GNU GRUB 2 boot loader, sys-apps/util-linux which 
provides cfdisk(sys-apps/util-linux is part of @system, so you already 
have this) and last, sys-fs/dosfstools which provides the DOS 
filesystem tools(mkfs.vfat etc.). 
Emerge these packages before continuing: 
	emerge -av sys-boot/syslinux sys-boot/grub sys-fs/dosfstools

== Setup
 
 - Partitioning 
First thing you need to do is create a partition, let's assume the USB 
flash drive is /dev/sdb: 
	cfdisk /dev/sdb
Remove everything, create a primary partition, set its type to 0E(W95 
FAT16 (LBA)), mark it bootable, write the partition table and quit. 

 - Formating 
Now you can format the partition in FAT16, you can try FAT32 but FAT16 
is recommended : 
	mkdosfs -F16 /dev/sdb1

 - FreeDOS 
There is a nice image of FreeDOS with all you need, you just have to 
copy a file from it to the partition: 
	mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb
	cd /mnt/usb
	wget http://odin.fdos.org/odin2005/odin1440.img

== MBR 
Next thing you need to do is make the USB flash drive boot on 
something, that would be GRUB. You will also need a file from Syslinux 
to boot FreeDOS. 

cd /mnt/usb
mkdir grub
cp /lib/grub/<your-arch>/* grub/
cp /usr/share/syslinux/memdisk .

A nice configuration for GRUB : 
File: /mnt/usb/grub/menu.lst

	default=0
	timeout=10
	root=(hd0,0)
	title FreeDOS
	        kernel /memdisk
	        initrd /odin1440.img

And finally, you can install GRUB : 
	grub
	grub> device (hd5) /dev/sdb
	grub> root (hd5,0)
	grub> setup (hd5)
	grub> quit
Note: GRUB might give you two "... failed (this is not fatal)" 
warnings, just ignore them.

== Last touch 
Now you can copy your BIOS update/whatever to the USB flash drive 
(/mnt/usb). 
Last step: 
	umount /dev/sdb1

That's it, you can boot on your USB flash drive. Once you are in 
FreeDOS, your flash drive will be c:\, enjoy... 
2009-06-09 - This statement might not be accurate, as the system is now 
booted into the odin floppy image. This will only present the files and 
programs that are within that odin image. Anything outside it will not 
be accessible. The only solution is to somehow load those desired 
program into the odin image in the first place. 

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