Make a USB keyboard work on a DOS BOOT drive

[liray]

Hi, I need to flash the BIOS of a VOT125 computer with an AMI BIOS. The BIOS does not provide any options for USB support (legacy suport). It only has USB ports as interface for kb and mouse (no PS2).

I have managed, so far, to create a DOS BOOT flash USD drive, boot and get to a C:\ prompt. But I cannot get the USB keyboard to work at all. I have tried to copy all "reasonable" .com files from a typical DOS directory into the flash drive, but that did not seem to work.

If I use the same USB flash drive to boot a notebook, I am able to use the builtin keyboard just fine, and I can DIR to see all the files that are in the flash drive.

How can I "enable" the keyboard to work on my PC when booting with my DOS flash drive?

Thank you,

[Bret]

You've got yourself into a little bit of a pickle there. When you boot from a USB drive, you normally expect the BIOS to support USB keyboards (and mice). There are ways around this, but it will be complicated.

The biggest problem you're going to run into is that once you install a DOS USB driver, you may lose the boot drive letter that the USB disk has assigned to it (C:). If that happens, DOS will freak out and you'll have all kinds of grief. Like I said, it's going to be complicated, but there are ways around these problems.

The first thing to do is determine whether or not the computer has any UHCI controllers (my USBHOSTS program will tell you that). If it doesn't, you'll need to install one in a spare PCI slot. Unfortunately in your case, my DOS USB drivers are the only ones available that have a keyboard driver, and they currently only work with UHCI. I'm working to fix that, but it's not going to happen any time soon.

Another possibility, of course, is to set up a bootable DOS partition on your hard drive (or add a second hard drive) and boot to DOS from the hard drive instead of the flash drive.

[liray]

Hi Bret, thank you for your help.

Let me add some more information to this case: I have been able to boot from an external DOS Boot CD, get an A:\ prompt and use the USB keyboard just fine! The problem I have with that approach is that I have not been sucessful in getting the BIOS flash files into the boot CD (I was able to copy them to the CD but when I do a DIR they just simply do not show up!). I also tried simply ejecting the boot CD, then put a new CD with the BIOS files but this fails because the computer looks for the boot CD ("Fail, Abort Retry" type error).

That is why I went the USD flash drive route, because it seemed easier to copy files to it (with the CD I was messing with Ultra ISO and the options just got too confusing, my lack of experience!).

In summary:
The external DOS boot CD boots fine into A:\ prompt, I have USB keyboard support but I cannot access my BIOS flash files!
The DOS flash drive boots Ok file into C:\ prompt, but the USB keyboard does not work!

The DOS boot partition is an option that I can also try, but I it seems that I am only an "inch" away from making it work with the CD or flash drive! (of course, that feeling is because I am not very experienced and do not fully understand how all this works).

Thank you for your help!

[Bret]

Let me add some more information to this case: I have been able to boot from an external DOS Boot CD, get an A:\ prompt and use the USB keyboard just fine! The problem I have with that approach is that I have not been sucessful in getting the BIOS flash files into the boot CD (I was able to copy them to the CD but when I do a DIR they just simply do not show up!). I also tried simply ejecting the boot CD, then put a new CD with the BIOS files but this fails because the computer looks for the boot CD ("Fail, Abort Retry" type error).

That's the same thing I was talking about when I said that DOS would "freak out" when the boot drive changed. There are different ways of "changing" the boot drive, and swapping CD's or floppies is one of them. There are ways around that also, but it's confusing and not simple -- none of this is.

That is why I went the USD flash drive route, because it seemed easier to copy files to it (with the CD I was messing with Ultra ISO and the options just got too confusing, my lack of experience!).

It's definitely easier, and you don't waste CD's that way.

In summary:
The external DOS boot CD boots fine into A:\ prompt, I have USB keyboard support but I cannot access my BIOS flash files!
The DOS flash drive boots Ok file into C:\ prompt, but the USB keyboard does not work!

The DOS boot partition is an option that I can also try, but I it seems that I am only an "inch" away from making it work with the CD or flash drive! (of course, that feeling is because I am not very experienced and do not fully understand how all this works).

Unfortunately, I think you're farther away than you realize. But, of course, creating a new partition isn't exactly a simple procedure, either. I think your best option is to try and figure out why you can't see the files on the CD. You should be able to see them -- I have no idea why you can't. I think that's the easiest route.

I can walk you through the process of the flash drive route, but I can't guarantee that it will work (it depends on how compliant your hardware is with the specs, and if you have a UHCI controller or not).

The hard drive partitioning route is probably the most reliable route (it should definitely work when you're done), but it's always scary to mess with the partitions on a working hard drive. I always put a bootable DOS partition on my computers, to handle situations like this (in addition to other things I use DOS for). Virtual machines are only a partial answer. MS wants everyone to believe that you absolutely don't need DOS any more, but that's not always true.