fail install dos 6.22 start disk->oldHD instead of CDRW

[daydreamer]

so if I copy files to HD, how do I get 6.22 boot sector to a FAT32 2gb installation? so I can toy around with my older Pentium 1's,Pentium II's,AMD K6-2/450,AMD 3200+ to control things with printerport?
I managed to get it as primary drive, but I get message complaining about "removable drive something, press any key" and it goes into endless loop there

[MichaelW]

My knowledge of this is old, but as far as I know to boot MS-DOS 6.22 directly from an HDD you must be in a FAT16 partition. I have diskette drives on all of my systems so for quick tests I normally boot MS-DOS 6.22 from a diskette. One simple method I have used for extended tests is to install MS-DOS 6.22 on its own HDD and use that for the boot drive.

[BogdanOntanu]

so if I copy files to HD, how do I get 6.22 boot sector to a FAT32 2gb installation?

You do not. First you boot a MS-DOS floppy disk and obtain a A:> prompt. Then you type A:>SYS C: <enter>

The SYS command will transfer the system from the floppy to the HDD.

Only then you can copy DOS files to the HDD. Alternatively you could run "install" or "setup" or something like that ( I do not remember the command name on the original MS-DOS floppy) or this could start automatically when you boot the floppy (this time depending on config.sys and autoexec.bat contents).

If you do not have a floppy drive to your PC then you have a problem with DOS.

You could make an image of the floppy and burn it to a bootable CD in floppy emulation mode and then boot that CD instead. You could use an already bootable HDD with MS-DOS installed ... but AFAIK DOS does have a problem with having/finding/detecting 2 or more bootable partitions even on multiple HDD's hence you would have to use FDISK in order to fix the MBR.

[daydreamer]

I could use some utility to reformat 2gb partition is just within limits FAT16 can handle
I have no more working diskdrives at all, so MSdos floppy is outta the question
I was thinking of burn a start CD and use some kinda low-level copy disk by sectors to HDD, including first sector
ok I try Sys command
thanks

[sinsi]

Have you got a 95/98 boot cd? you can boot from it, don't setup windows, then use fdisk/format to put the basics of dos7 onto the hdd.
If not, BogdanOntanu has the best idea - make your own boot cd (I did one a while ago to put dos6/win311 on virtualpc).

[BlackVortex]

This is kinda offtopic, but since your goal is to "toy" with your old PCs, maybe you should try FreeDOS, as a robust DOS alternative, which also comes in a bootable CD iso.

And it's free, and supports the FAT32 filesystem and I think long filenames.

http://www.freedos.org/

Sorry for digressing from the problem at hand though.

[hutch--]

This much, if you are gping to use Microsoft DOS, use 6.22 as the later versions had irritating restrictions on disk writes as they were the background for Win9x. You can even install Windows for Workgroups and the DOS will run fine below it yet it allows you to do networking and a few other things that were a pain in DOS. On a computer less than 10 years old, WFW boots like a rocket.

The FreeDOS is a reasonable alternative but I wopuld be inclined to look for a DPMI extender so you can run 32 bit from the commandline as it has a lot more grunt.

[daydreamer]

This much, if you are gping to use Microsoft DOS, use 6.22 as the later versions had irritating restrictions on disk writes as they were the background for Win9x. You can even install Windows for Workgroups and the DOS will run fine below it yet it allows you to do networking and a few other things that were a pain in DOS. On a computer less than 10 years old, WFW boots like a rocket.

The FreeDOS is a reasonable alternative but I wopuld be inclined to look for a DPMI extender so you can run 32 bit from the commandline as it has a lot more grunt.

I do not think if FreeDOS is an alternative for a masm/edit installation to make it possible to edit printer driven output/input at place is no problem with onboard video and save back to HD, which gets too tedious to reinstall CDROM startdisk everytime I need to modify something
32bit extender sounds good for open up possibilities to keep much more in ram, otherwise MMX is capable to be reached in DOS realmode, but not SSE
2GB opens up possibility to store tons of maps in bmp format, 256 color format is enough for dos and easier to keep 3 more times in memory, when I do not have access to several GB ram

[PBrennick]

Use a virtual disk drive. It creates an area that you can control or format in any way that you want. As far as booting, it is unnecessary. DOS just needs to find command.com to work properly and since you will start DOS by executing command.com, it will know where itself is, which is very necessary as it is re-entrant.

-- Paul

[FORTRANS]

daydreamer wrote:

and save back to HD, which gets too tedious to reinstall CDROM
startdisk everytime I need to modify something

   If you have booted from a CD-ROM (or whatever), you can run the
SYS command as BogdanOntanu mentioned.  That will make the hard
disk bootable.  I would use FORMAT C: /S to make the hard disk bootable.
SYS can fail if there are existing files in the required system area.  (At
least on some versions of DOS, 6+ may work around this?)  Booting
from hard disk "should" be faster than CD-ROM.  DOS 6.22, and earlier,
only use FAT12 or FAT16 for boot drives (IIRC).  And stick to A: or
C: as the boot drive.

   There are utilities to load and unload device drivers so you do not
need to reboot.  I have not tried them, and do not know how stable
your system would be.

   OS/2 has a DOS emulation called a virtual DOS machine (VDM).
These are DOS 5.0 compatible, and can be created and destroyed
with a click of the mouse.  OS/2 DOS emulation tends to be better
than the Windows "Command Prompt" in my experience.

   And as PBrennick said, a virtual system would work if a native
install becomes impossible.  However to clarify a point he said,
COMMAND.COM is the user interface to DOS, it is not MS-DOS
itself, and can be replaced with 4DOS or similar.  The book
"Undocumented DOS" by Andrew Schulman, et. al., shows how
to write a replacement.

   Let us know how you are progressing.

HTH,

Steve N.

[PBrennick]

FORTRANS,

Just to clarify, FAT12 is just for floppy disks so it is not a factor here ... and COMMAND.COM 'is' MS-DOS (or PC-DOS, for some versions), all the other files are to support/expand it. If you use 4DOS, which is fine, you no longer have MS-DOS. The nice thing about MS-DOS 6.22 is that it is the only 'free' version that ever existed. As a result of Microsoft loosing a court case (with whoever wrote Stacker because they got caught red-handed copying the stacker technology - Central Point, I think) they were only allowed to charge you the cost of the floppy it came on for that DOS.

-- Paul

[MichaelW]

It was Stac Electronics.

[daydreamer]

thanks guys, I think there is enough information in this thread, moved on to RTRT for now and also busy with textures etc because if I dont have the fastest raytracer, I have the bestlooking

wonder if dual computers would be the most fun, XP for be able to input from webcam and some other system to do the dirtywork of lowlevel IO
to control something
I need to invest in some things before I can go on with build first anyway

[FORTRANS]

{snip} and COMMAND.COM 'is' MS-DOS (or PC-DOS, for some versions), all the other files are to support/expand it.

   Ah, semantics, or a point of view.  You/I can write a DOS program and run it with
COMMAND.COM no where in sight.  But it does provide the user with the interactive
interface.  You can have DOS without COMMAND.COM, but it won't act much like DOS
to a casual user.  So, a choice of what "DOS' means to you, the API or the CLI.

If you use 4DOS, which is fine, you no longer have MS-DOS. The nice thing about MS-DOS 6.22 is that it is the only 'free' version that ever existed. As a result of Microsoft loosing a court case (with whoever wrote Stacker because they got caught red-handed copying the stacker technology - Central Point, I think) they were only allowed to charge you the cost of the floppy it came on for that DOS.

   As I remember (or misremember...)  M$ was required to supply the "upgrade" from 6.20 to 6.22
because of that gaff.  But only to owners of 6.20.  I will check my copy to see
what actually changed.

Regards,

Steve

[PBrennick]

Thanks Michael, it has been a while. At the time, I was involved with Peter Norton's company doing some consulting work and, boy, did it create a stir. We always felt MS did those type of things and you could not fight them as they would eat up all your money in court by contstantly continnuing the case. It was good to see them get stung for a change.

FORTERANS,
I noticed you switched your wording from MS-DOS to DOS. I dislike people who talk around things like that. My comment was about you saying COMMAN.COM is not 'MS-DOS.' Are you a lawyer? They do that type of thing, also.

-- Paul.