Install DOS 6.xx using a Win95/98 install disk?

[jward52]

I saw this somewhere a few months ago and now I can't find it. I have an old PC game (RAMA) that won't run in Win 98. I have an extra case with the goods inside and an extra HDD ready to format. I'd like to get this going soon. Any ideas on how to do it?

[Paul T]

I would make a DOS boot disk / USB and use that when I want to play the game. A search will provide instructions.

cheers, Paul

[jward52]

I remembered Lifehacker had something along the line of what I was looking for, so
I did a search there and came up with this, a DOS emulation program for Windows.
http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/index.html

It might work, worth a try. I have a Win95 install disc somewhere and maybe it'll
run on that if the other fails. Will also try booting to DOS.

[BATcher]

As Paul says, a Google for Dos Boot Disk would have brought up http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm, whereon there are four DOS boot disks available, at least!

[Doc Brown]

Another possibility is FreeDOS (http://www.freedos.org/). I haven't used it, but I understand it works pretty good.

[Poltor]

Just found my old Windows 3.11 and DOS 6.2 floppies - historical or what?

[musikman1]

IF you use Win98 to format a floppy, that's a DOS 6.1. Format it FORMAT a: /s to make it bootable or after you format it, run c:\sys a:, and that will do the same thing.

NOTE: When MS came out with XP they REALLY wanted everyone to stop using FAT32, transferring to NTFS instead. So they ARTIFICIALLY put a limiter on the FAT32, and put out the "rumor" that FAT32 cannot format more than 9GB (or whatever it was).

Never is, never WAS true. If you have a pre-hacked (Win98 or DOS6.1) floppy to boot with, you can STILL format up to 2T in FAT32. It worked just fine on my WD 2T last week. Make yourself a SUPER FORMATTER, just format a: /s, then copy:

FORMAT
FDISK
EDIT
SYS

.. over to the disk and you have a FAT32 formatter that will work today on up to 2TB hard drives!

I'm sorry I can't tell you what to do with a machine that doesn't have a floppy. I'm a musician, and we have a ton of current equipment that STILL uses floppies, and yet another ton of software that REQUIRES a FAT32 disc (to be compatible with MAC and UNIX flavors, as well as cleaner timing on musical issues).

I'm just finishing up here on a brand new Win7Pro/64 system (my first), and it's a DIY project, and I superglued a USB floppy and a card reader together, and inserted it in one 5.25" external slot on my case.

The USB I plugged a raw USB cable into an internal (on the Mobo) header, and used a plastic tie to attach it to the backside of the 5.25 frame, and plugged the floppy USB in right there.

The Floppy STILL reacts like an original drive A:, and I still use my original boot seq [ Flop - HDD - BD - Network ].

I started with PC's with my '78 Vic20 with the tape drives (2 of them!), so I've sort of "grown up" with them..!

Best of luck getting that USB drive to work. Look out for the SIIG card.

Rick

[bubtub]

Dude, Dos is integrated in 98. Go to start, shutdown, restart in ms-dos mode

[nate01pa]

The DOS on Windows 98 is DOS 7.1. DOS 6.2 will not access FAT32 drives.

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm will provide you with a Win98 boot disk.

An even better way is to modify the MSDOS.SYS file. Add the line BootMenu=1 near the top of the file. The next time you boot, you will see a menu with an option "Command Prompt Only" which will not load Win98. You may need to modify the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to get your game to run.

[DrWho]

I can't begin to quote all the errors and misconceptions in this thread.

A floppy or Flash Drive formatted on a Windows ME system, will work fine for a Utilities disk for FAT32 hard drives, and even NTFS hard drives if you just run NTFS4DOS before trying to access the drive.

Oh yes, Windows XP will run just fine on a FAT32 hard drive. I've run mine that way since first upgrading from 98 to XP, many years ago.

Now for the big Shocker! In Windows 8/CP/32, you can install and run old 16 bit programs. I am running a 16 bit game, "Mah Jongg" that was written in ~1990, before Windows as we've known it, ever reared its Ugly Head.

Here's a pic of Windows 8/CP/32 actually running the old Mah Jongg program.



I've been thumbing my nose at conventional thought for many years and loving it! I see no reason to change now.

I recently partitioned and formatted a new 1TB hard drive with my Windows ME Utilities floppy disk. I have the same files on a bootable CD and Flash Drive.
Anything that works on a floppy, works even better on a Flash Drive or CD if your PC won't boot up from a Flash Drive.

Cheers Mates! Long Live DOS!

The Doctor