Installing MS DOS on a previous Win 10 computer.

MisterEd said:

Can't the Windows 10 computer read/write to the floppy drive? If it could it could use a program like WinImage to write the .img images to a blank floppy disk.

I have no idea why this is happening. But this is what happens on this and other Win 10 computers I have. Windows File Explorer will not list it in its left pane tree but the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media icon in the systray sees it. I just cannot write to it even on the 1 Win 11 machine that does list it in the tree. I know its strange but I have tried all options I can think of to write to it. Also, on the machine I am trying to do all this, I tried to create an USB boot stick. That destroyed the stick and gave me the BSOD, or similar screen, on that computer. It did, however, reboot and restore Win 10.

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PenPusher said:

Can't the Windows 10 computer read/write to the floppy drive? Yes my dad still uses them!!! I gave him some usb sticks... fell on deaf ears.

He's also owns a set of IBM PC Dos 7 3.5" disks and Word perfect 6.2 for Dos/Windows 3.11.

I know this is supposed to be doable but I can't do it and I have no idea why. On the machine I am using, I am willing to try anything because if I destroy it in the process, I really haven't lost anything.

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Bree said:

You don't need to copy to a floppy. 7-Zip can open each disk .img file and extract the contents. Copy the contents all the disks to a single folder or a usb stick and you can run the setup from that.

Attachment 385358

OK, here is what is confusing about that. On the disk that is running DOS, it has no Windows on it at all, USB is not supported and the only device it will access is the 3 1/2" floppy.

Have you tried "Freedos" FreeDOS | The FreeDOS Project

Bree said:

Are you running Windows from another disk on that machine? If so, then you could extract all the install files to a folder on the DOS disk.

I am running Windows on a separate hard drive. Both are not connected at the same time, one or the other boots up. So let me ask this. If I can find another SATA cable to hook up both disks at the same time and boot to Windows, are you saying I could write to the DOS disk to a folder I created on it while in DOS even though it is formatted in whatever format DOS set it to? I believe DOS is 16 Bit format. I didn't think Windows would allow me to see that format.

Berton said:

Just a comment on installing from floppies: Most times the floppy install routines know when the install has completed with one disk and is coded to ask for the next disk, usually by number. I've tried copying the disks to a single larger one such as a ZIP Disk but that coding makes it fail, can't find the next disk.

Another thing about booting USB, usually the BIOS can do it with USB 2 but not with USB 3 which needed drivers loading by the OS. Haven't had to try with newer machines having combination 2 and 3 ports like the smaller/thinner/lighter Notebooks.

Thanks for the information. I am stuck with installing from the A: drive but seems my Lotus #2 disk has become corrupt. Cleaning it did not help.

Berton said:

Bummer. I just checked my list of saved images and I have Lotus 1-2-3 Version 4 and consists of disks 0 through 7, just cannot recall if for DOS or Windows 3.1/WFW. I created the images in 1997 so may be for Windows.

Yes, the DOS version, where disk #2 is corrupt, I have is 4 and there are 6 disks in it numbered 1 through 6.