Does anyone know if there is a problem with VMWare Workstation 4 and using flat-real mode?
I have a bootsector that I have been using in Bochs and 'real-life booting' which seemed to work fine, but when I tried to boot from the same floppy using VMWare it causes it to die.
Basically, all the code executed is:
Boot_02:
CLI ; Disable Interrupts
LGDT FWORD PTR GDT_48 ; Load Global Descriptor Table
MOV ECX, CR0
OR ECX, 1
MOV CR0, ECX ; Enable Protected Mode
MOV AX, 10h
MOV DS, AX ; DS = Flat 4GB (Sel #2)
HLT
It doesnt reach the HLT instruction when using VMWare - but crashes when I load DS with 10h.
I have a bootsector that I have been using in Bochs and 'real-life booting' which seemed to work fine, but when I tried to boot from the same floppy using VMWare it causes it to die.
Basically, all the code executed is:
Boot_02:
CLI ; Disable Interrupts
LGDT FWORD PTR GDT_48 ; Load Global Descriptor Table
MOV ECX, CR0
OR ECX, 1
MOV CR0, ECX ; Enable Protected Mode
MOV AX, 10h
MOV DS, AX ; DS = Flat 4GB (Sel #2)
HLT
It doesnt reach the HLT instruction when using VMWare - but crashes when I load DS with 10h.
Vmware might need an floppy image that is a little bigger than the exact file (hehe or 1.44M) and will throw an error if you read beyond the floppy image... with a real floppy that error is impossible since the floppy has to be 1.44 (well.. do you have a 360K drive ?)
Besides that emulators are for production faster testing as they do not emulate the real hardware exactly. For example i have found that vmware lacks the ATA Identify Device command :D and it crashes when ou try that on HDD. However most real HDDs have that command ...
That made me suddenly realize that even WinXP is not using normal today ATA commands and is still using "other" strange methods to get info ;)
That doesent look like your problem...but its good to know for when you will be testing ATA-IDE
BTW Vmware can be detected ;)
Besides that emulators are for production faster testing as they do not emulate the real hardware exactly. For example i have found that vmware lacks the ATA Identify Device command :D and it crashes when ou try that on HDD. However most real HDDs have that command ...
That made me suddenly realize that even WinXP is not using normal today ATA commands and is still using "other" strange methods to get info ;)
That doesent look like your problem...but its good to know for when you will be testing ATA-IDE
BTW Vmware can be detected ;)