virtualbox.org

I have set up a VM for DOS in VirtualBox 6.1.16 on Windows 10 x64 as host OS. I have connected a USB floppy drive (Freecom, 2020-12). Booting from a boot floppy disk is extremely slow (> 20 min) but works. It does not matter if it is MS-DOS or FreeDOS. Afterwards, it is not possible to write to the floppy. The write protection is switched off.

Booting from a floppy image (*.ima) is fast as it should be.

Then, I have installed FreeDOS 1.2 from CD image to C:\. I have created a file "test.txt" on C:\. Copying it to A:\ is also not possible.

Thanks for your help!

Why????

1. Floppy drives were long obsolete before VirtualBox was a gleam in its developers eyes. I very much doubt that floppy performance was ever a priority.

2. I also very much doubt that (1) will change in the future.

DOS does not require floppies after the installation stage, and that stage can easily be catered for by having as many floppy images as you like packed onto a single USB thumb drive, or copy the install files onto a CD image (ISO). I don't see any point in pursuing a path you deliberately made difficult for yourself.