Installing MS DOS on a previous Win 10 computer.

Samuria said:

There are lots of other dos like pc dos, ibm dos ,norton dos you have to remember a lot only work on old disk formats of fat like FAT-16

I think that is what the DOS installation disk #1 formatted the drive to before it actualaly installed the DOS program. I am not sure how to check that right now because I need to boot to A: drive first before I can access C: to use DOS.

On a side note and it may or may not be a problem. The mother board in this computer is an ASUS Z87 - Plus. So when I needed to set the external floppy drive first in the drive boot up sequence I went into the BIOS and it displayed images representing the drives that were installed. The A: was represented by multiple 3 1/2" disks. All I had to do to change the boot up sequence was drag that image horizontally until it was located first in line. It did work in that A: was accessed first and I was able to install DOS. However, and I have no idea why, the BIOS or something kept creating additional images of this floppy drive. At the point that floppy drive broke, I had 5 images of it if the boot sequence.

This gets even stranger. I wanted to try to delete those drive images in the BIOS. So I went into the BIOS and all of what were the images of that floppy drive now just showed a blank disk with UEFI under it. This was an older Windows 10 machine and I'm sure it never used mbr2gpt to convert to the disk from the Master Boot Record (MBR) to the GUID Partition Table (GPT) partition style. Unless it was always that way but my computer builder doesn't think that is the case. The only machine I had to use that on was the one that was updated to Windows 11. Anyway I could not delete those drives so the fellow who builds my machines said to reset the BIOS to its defaults. That got rid of all 5 of those drives. Now when I boot it hesitates and goes back into the BIOS. He and I think that is because it will not boot to the C: drive because it never would after DOS was installed. And second because, there is no A: drive installed to access a boot disk from. I'm hoping when I get the new floppy drive I can once again boot up to the A: drive.

Even if that works out, it still does not explain why the BIOS created 4 extra floppy drives. I hope that doesn't happen again. Maybe that defective floppy drive affected the BIOS in some manner.

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bro67 said:

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

WinWorld: MS-DOS 6.22

Thank you. I may have to do that. Actually I think I will look into it as soon as I can get the time.

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Can anyone explain why my posts are being combined? I made 2 separate posts lately to 2 separate individuals and the post were combined into one post. Not al all sure what this post will do but here goes. This WAS a separate post but now 3 are combined into 1. Strange.

Another thing you have to contend with is the size of the hard drive. MS-DOS 6.22 can't see a hard drive larger than 2GB. If you install MS-DOS on a hard drive larger than that the space beyond 2GB will be wasted.

BTW, MS-DOS disk1 will create a partition on the hard drive and format it. It will also make the hard drive bootable. When the installation of MS-DOS is done and you remove the floppy disk the computer will the boot from the hard drive to DOS.

MisterEd said:

Another thing you have to contend with is the size of the hard drive. MS-DOS 6.22 can't see a hard drive larger than 2GB. If you install MS-DOS on a hard drive larger than that the space beyond 2GB will be wasted.

BTW, MS-DOS disk1 will create a partition on the hard drive and format it. It will also make the hard drive bootable. When the installation of MS-DOS is done and you remove the floppy disk the computer will the boot from the hard drive to DOS.

I also used fdisk to create only a 100 MB primary drive for DOS to use and wasted the remainder of the 500 GB drive. It did not boot to the hard drive. I am told in this forum that it needs a boot disk in the A: drive and then change to the C: drive in order to run DOS.

MisterEd said:

That may be true on newer computers because DOS can't handle booting to a modern hard drive. 25 years ago when DOS was still being used these computers did indeed boot to the hard drive. Other than when they were needed the floppy drives remained empty most of the time.

Unfortunately, all my older and smaller hard drives have long ago failed. The smallest hard drive I have now is 9.6 GB. When I have the time I may try to install DOS on it. Even then that might be unsuccessful. I have a couple 20 year old computers but even they may be too new to run DOS. The problem is drivers.

I wish I had saved a few of my older computers to play around with this. As a matter of fact, even though it would have had the same problem, I just very recently scrapped a Windows 7 computer that started out as an XP. At least it would have had a motherboard that I could have run the internal 3 1/2" drives I still have.

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I got the external floppy drive and it gets as far as "Starting MS DOS" and just stays there when using the DOS installation disk #1. So, I don't know if there is a problem with the disk or the computer. I tried to create a DOS boot disk using Rufus. When I connect this device to the computer, Windows File Explorer does not see it. It shows up in the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the systray and it shows up under This PC as icon in the right pane but not in the left pane's tree. Consequentially Rufus does not find it to format it. Is there a setting somewhere that will make it be discovered in Windows File Explorer? Please see attachment.

WELL, I just tried it in another computer that did see it in Windows File Explorer and for some Reason Rufus still did not see it in order to format it as it should. My only option, I guess, is to try that boot usb stick.

I'm getting very confused. There is a link above somewhere that I was going back to read. I thought it said I could create a DOS boot disk on an USB stick. Now I just read that DOS does not support USB but I know my 3 1/2" external floppy disk drive that, I loaded MS-DOS 6.22 from, was connected to an USB port. So even though DOS may not support USB, if that link above would allow me to create a DOS boot stick, wouldn't it be the same as the floppy drive in that it would show me A: drive? From there I can get to the hard drive which has DOS installed on drive C: Drive.

Now about FreeDOS. I have tried to understand exactly what it is. First off, I believe it is installed on a Windows computer? I am not wanting DOS for games, I want it for Lotus 123 and I have that program on 3 1/2" disks. I also have all my worksheets form Lotus on the same kind of disks. I would need to be able to access that external floppy drive to get Lotus installed and retrieve my worksheets. The computer I am using is very similar to the one I posted about above and posted an attachment showing the drive not being recognized. It does not see that external floppy drive in Windows File Explorer, so I don't see any way, if FreeDOS is installed on a Windows machine, to access the files I need. But, I just don't really know what FreeDOS is. So here is what I really need to know, if while in FreeDOS could I access A: by typing that drive and hitting enter? Would FreeDOS give me the capability of reaching A: drive even though Windows File Explorer doesn't recognize it?

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bro67 said:

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

WinWorld: MS-DOS 6.22

I followed the link here and did everything it said to do to create a DOS on a USB stick. It recognized it as being located first in the boot up drive sequence. It came up to a screen that highlighted Default and said to press Tab to edit options but would boot automatically in 10 seconds. Once it reached 0 it started the count over again at 10. Hitting Tab button did no good. So this procedure once again another failure in, what is becoming, a long line of failures. OH, well!