Installing MS DOS on a previous Win 10 computer.

bro67 said:

Personally I would use FreeDos since it is engineered for modern hardware and will run most stuff from a old. FreeDOS | The FreeDOS Project

Thanks. I will have to take a look at that. Do you know if it can be downloaded on one machine and then installed on a different one? Most programs can, I know but I don't want to make a mistake and have it install on this or any other computer except the old one I am playing around with.

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Berton said:

The command sys a: presumes one is booted to a running DOS machine, sys a: or sys c: makes the drive bootable. Running the firs disk of MS-DOS is bootable and gets things started.

Yep I am kind of dead in the water until at least tomorrow sometime. My external 3 1/2" floppy drive broke already. Luckily I am still able to return it for a complete refund. I have another, hopefully a better quality, one on order. I just hope it didn't destroy the DOS installation disk #1 when it tried to read it.

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The above was supposed to be two completely separate posts. Not sure why they aren't. I even edited them to make them that way but it just didn't happen.

Rufus can create a bootable FreeDOS USB stick.

Ben

I suggest you make images of your original MSDOS floppy disks in case the floppy disks become corrupted.

I used WinImage 9.0 on a computer with Windows XP to read the floppy disks and create images of each one.
MSDOS 6.22 Disk 1
MSDOS 6.22 Disk 2
MSDOS 6.22 Disk 3
MSDOS 6.22 Supplement Disk 1
MSDOS 6.22 Supplement Disk 2

Note I also created a 1.44MB blank floppy image (1.44MB)

Here is what the images look like:



I have used these images to make a MSDOS virtual machine on a computer with Windows 10.

A different approach is to use a program called DOSBox. DOSBox simulates MSDOS on a modern computer.
It can even run old 16-bit DOS programs.

DOSBox
DOSBox, an x86 emulator with DOS

Here is DOSBox running on a computer with Windows 11:

bro67 said:

Read the Help wiki. It answers everything about FreeDos.

Thank you. I will do that. Editing this post. I did read most of it and it gave me more questions than answers. It talked about "PC emulator such as "VirtualBox to install and boot FreeDOS" and I have no idea what that is. I am not sure if this is supposed to be installed on a Windows machine when it says, "For example, Windows standard-mode works on FreeDOS, but ‘386-mode Windows for Workgroups 3.11 does not. " There are other curve balls it threw at me but that is my fault because I am not as versed as I should be with all the things they talk about.

My machine I am trying to use has a hard drive that never had Windows of any version installed on it. I was trying to make it a DOS only machine. I am not sure, even after reading about it, if FreeDOS can be installed on a new hard drive right out of the box when the mention of "VirtualBox to install and boot FreeDOS" is needed.

Thank you for the suggestion though.

The LGR video shows that you do not need Virtualbox.

MisterEd said:

I suggest you make images of your original MSDOS floppy disks in case the floppy disks become corrupted.

I used WinImage 9.0 on a computer with Windows XP to read the floppy disks and create images of each one.
MSDOS 6.22 Disk 1
MSDOS 6.22 Disk 2
MSDOS 6.22 Disk 3
MSDOS 6.22 Supplement Disk 1
MSDOS 6.22 Supplement Disk 2

Note I also created a 1.44MB blank floppy image (1.44MB)

Here is what the images look like:



I have used these images to make a MSDOS virtual machine on a computer with Windows 10.

A different approach is to use a program called DOSBox. DOSBox simulates MSDOS on a modern computer.
It can even run old 16-bit DOS programs.

DOSBox
DOSBox, an x86 emulator with DOS

Here is DOSBox running on a computer with Windows 11:

Thank you for the suggestion, it looks interesting. I just searched and read about and watched videos on installing DOSBox. I think installing it is straight forward, but I am not using it for games. That seems to be what everything I found mentioned and even pointed to sites where DOS games can be downloaded. If I installed DOSBox I would only want to install Lotus 123 to start with. I have the Lotus 123 program on 3 1/2" disks. Would I be able to use regular DOS commands to access and install programs from A: Drive?

About creating images of the DOS installation disks, I hope the defective floppy drive I had didn't ruin the Disk #1. I won't know until I get the new drive I ordered.

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Berton said:

I did the same with floppies I wanted to keep. I had WinImage 7 but the downside is the program didn't work on later Windows versions since the Help function isn't supported so I've just downloaded WinImage 11 from MajorGeeks.Com - MajorGeeks.

I meant to add about an External floppy drive, I have 2, one is a white/clear TEAC FD-05PUB and the other is a black Dell made by TEAC with same model number.

I ordered the only one I found that mentioned it supported all the versions of Windows back to 2000 and included Windows 11. It is a brand name I never heard of. It has both USB 2.0 and 3.0 compatibility with two interfaces, one usb3.0 and one Type c adapter. Hopefully it will last me longer than the 4 days the other one lasted.

Instead of using a floppy drive, use usb sticks with the images on them. You can get the images dor any OS at internetarchive .org. Personally I would go the CF card route vs floppies. Installing MS-DOS 6.22 on a 486 without a floppy drive using a CF-to-IDE adapter – The Instruction Limit

Dos on a USB install. https://www.techwalla.com/articles/h...s-622-on-a-usb

https://winworldpc.com/product/ms-dos/622?sid=lzRMTz