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I was ever considering about install PTS-DOS 2000 or PTS-DOS 32 with Windows 9x... There may be better DOS than MSDOS, but because I'm using Win98 on this early PC I have to stick on it...
I'm possible to tri-boot (I don't know how to say that) DOS/WFW/Win98 using DOS 7.1's boot menu (I learned it mainly from boot disks)...
Besides MS-DOS 7.1 I have never heard another OS that can support dual-boot with Windows 9x... Once I installed PTS-DOS 2000 Pro but Win9x can no longer boot. (Any DOS can boot Windows for Workgroups 3.1x, that's what I knew)
I don't know if PTS-DOS 2000 has the features that came up with the newer PTS-DOS 32, like FAT32/Large HDD support and so on... I knew that PTS-DOS 2000 and PTS-DOS 32 has a boot loader but I haven't used it before... PTS-DOS 32 only has a limited amount of command lines and does not have internet features that were introduced in PTS-DOS 2000...
Please tell me. Thanks.
You neeed a Boot Manager:
http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm
Windows 98 already has a MS-DOS sub-system aka MS-DOS 7.10, though if you want LFN etcetc take a look at ROM-DOS it is the most up-to-date:
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Is it okay to ask what you want to do? I mean, what is it you need/want to accomplish by using a different DOS with Win98? Not that there's anything wrong with just personal interest and experimentation, but if you have any particular things your hoping to get working, it could help to explain them.
Many people would not consider your current setup as a real multi-boot configuration. A boot manager setup would allow you to actually select different operating systems at boot up. You are really only booting DOS 7.1 and then selecting to either just stay in plain DOS, or start WfW, or start Win98. These are "operating environments" which start from DOS. A real multi-boot system has the hard drive split up into different partitions and a different operating system on each partition. Then a boot manager menu allows you to select on boot up which OS (or partition) you want to boot. The advantage is that you can then run different systems, such as PTS-DOS 2000, which are not compatible with other existing systems (ie, Win98). With a boot manager setup, ANY OS can "dual-boot" with Win98. To set this up you need a better disk partitioning tool other than MS-DOS fdisk because you need to create multiple primary partitions (up to a maximum of 4, by PC standards), as versus the single primary partition and extended partition with multiple logical drives (the only multiple partition setup MS-DOS fdisk allows). While it's possible with some operating systems, many will not boot from a logical drive partition.
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I have Ontrack Dynamic Drive Overlay installed on my 40G hard disk to get safe access to the entire disk space. (My BIOS only supports 8.4G and it didn't seem to be stable without an overlay)
I don't know why, but my Ontrack DDO v9.88 crashes when I attempts to boot CD. (My computer didn't have internal CD-boot support and I don't know if my IDE controller is too old to support it...)
XOSL can be installed, but it doesn't seem to work with Ontrack DDO, maybe there's some trouble with MBR... It just boots like it used to.
PS, PTS-DOS boots differently from MS-DOS. Its system files are PTSDOS.SYS, CONFIG.PTS, COMMAND.COM and AUTOPTS.BAT. The only thing that has the same file name with MS-DOS was the COMMAND.COM. It doesn't bother other system files of MS-DOS.
Who knows about how to use PTS-DOS 32's built-in boot manager? PhysTechSoft said it can boot up to 10 different operating systems, including DOS, Windows, Linux, OS/2, etc. However, there weren't any documents about how to get it work.
Besides, do you know any boot managers that is compatible with Ontrack DDO?
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Even some 486 PC's supported IDE CD Drives...
If you only want **-DOS 8GB is ample, LFN and FAT32 is not required unless you need the compatibility to Windows!!
Anyway Google for the "Western Digital EZ-Drive 9.03" if you really want a drive overlay solution.
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You really should spend some time and study about boot managers. There are dozens of choices, many of them are free, and there is probably one which will do what you need. It's strange that PhysTechSoft doesn't provide any documentation for their boot manager, you should NOT try to use any boot manager which doesn't provide clear instructions. You can start by reading about booting at Wikipedia and follow the links, there's even a matrix comparison of many different boot managers. The problem of having to use a hard drive overlay will require special attention. It would be better if you could find a BIOS upgrade which provided the LBA support for your IDE controller. Are you sure that there isn't an "enable LBA mode" in you BIOS setup options? There are (well, there 'were' years ago) ISA cards which would upgrade the IDE BIOS to provide LBA translations for using large hard disks in computers which didn't support them. There are possibly boot managers which will do the translation without an overlay, but most need the BIOS support built in. You will probably have to pay for a boot manager which will do LBA translation as well, or figure out how to use one with the overlay. The trick to using any boot manager with an overlay is to have the boot manager code written to a partition boot record instead of in the MBR. I don't think any boot manager put in the MBR will be compatible with an overlay. But, if you have a partition reserved just for putting the bootmanager into, then after the overlay boots from the MBR it will go to the active partition and activate the boot manager. I believe most boot managers will work okay with that kind of setup.
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I haven't seen any LBA options in my BIOS, and there have never been any BIOS upgrades for my Acer V30-II motherboard.
Somehow, data may not write correctly in the hard disk without using an overlay... And it seems to be able to set up to 99999 cylinders, 63 heads and 63 sectors (about 61GB).
Maybe I should try other boot loaders or something else...
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Even we are not communicating to you or you are not understanding.
AFAIK the Western Digital DDO loads itself as a "boot loader" Therefore any O/Ses installed are within the DDO software which acts as a barrier between the O/S and BIOS.
I may be wrong and quite possibly am but I believe the WD DDO includes its own boot loader. One side effect of DDO in PC-DOS was direct port access and why I gave up having a 20GB HDD in a 486 PC!!!As to the size of hard drive 8.4GB max is the general rule for Pentium PC's of that vintage:
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I'm using Ontrack DDO... I don't know where could I find other kinds of overlays... Probably my BIOS has a 2GB barrier which caused the computer cannot write data correctly on hard disks between 2GB-8GB.
It was a long time ago when I first got my computer, it was using another motherboard with AWARD BIOS, which had LBA option... (At first I'm using a WD Caviar 853MB hard drive so I didn't notice this at that time as the disk was using CHS by default...). However, the motherboard's keyboard port was damaged by accident and then the motherboard was changed to this one and used for about 10 years now...
Now I don't know if there was a newer BIOS for Acer V30-II motherboard. The BIOS installed on this motherboard was v2.0(R01-N9) and it seems to be the last BIOS. I was searching this for a long time...
Now the disk is a Hitachi DeskStar, 40G, with Ontrack DDO installed and it's working safe.
BTW, as for using ROM-DOS... I tried to SYS the primary partition but it says "Invalid BIOS parameter for block C" and then the drive C became unreadable after reboot... (After formatting the partition the partition can be SYSed, however). The latest Single-User version of ROM-DOS (v4.20.1594) wrote something about using a disk larger than 8.4GB...
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When booting Windows 98 from another DOS, registry problems occurs.
Booting WIN.COM from PTS-DOS 32 will show a Registry Checker interface telling about something probably for registry inaccessible...
Booting WIN.COM from ROM-DOS 7.1 with Windows 98 devices will freeze with messages:
"Registry File was not found. Registry services may be inoperative for this session.
XMS cache problem. Registry services may be inoperative this session."Maybe any DOS can boot Windows 95, but only MS-DOS can boot Windows 98... probably...
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Windows 9x already has MS-DOS included as a sub-system, therefore only Windows version 1, 2 and 3 needed MS-DOS prior to installing.
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"When booting Windows 98 from another DOS, registry problems occurs."
Yes, correct, Microsoft Corporation does not want you to use "another DOS" with THEIR Windows 98. First, please understand, I still use Windows 98 as well, so this isn't criticism. But, you don't seem to understand that, legally and officially, Windows 98 is the property of Microsoft Corporation. You only "use" the software and your use is "legally" regulated by the End Users License Agreement (EULA). If you actually read this EULA, it basically says that you aren't allowed to use the product in any manner which is not intended by Microsoft. Microsoft does not intend for anyone to used Windows 98 with any DOS other than MS-DOS Version 7.10. So, unless a different DOS has been specifically developed to "fool" Windows 98 that it is this MS-DOS 7.10, Windows 98 will NOT start from it. It's as simple as that. Nor is there any advantage to using another DOS to run Windows 98.
In your original post you implied that you are looking for, "...better DOS than MSDOS,". If some DOS is "better" than another DOS is entirely subjective and dependent on what a person is trying to do with DOS. If your trying to run Windows 98, there is not any "better" DOS to use other than MS-DOS 7.10. If, however, there are other things you are trying to do with DOS, then there might a "better" DOS than MS-DOS. You ought to look into FreeDOS. It is a very active development of a new and completely free DOS which is also capable of dual booting with Windows 98. That is, you can put FreeDOS in the same FAT32 partition with Win98 and chose to boot either FreeDOS for doing DOS stuff, or MS-DOS 7.10 to start Windows from. However, the FreeDOS boot loader which allows this may not be compatible with a hard drive "overlay".
Finally, as for the lack of LBA support for large hard disks in your computer. This was a problem many people dealt with 10 years ago. There were several different solutions to the problem. I tried, many years ago, using this "overlay" software and did not like it. I preferred the hardware solution where there was a card I stuck in one of the empty ISA slots on the computer which grabbed the BIOS call to the hard drive and then translated it to provide LBA support. It worked great, just as if the computer had built in large disk support. But, that was many years ago. Currently, people are looking for solutions to providing 48-bit LBA support to computers that don't have it.
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I just got a Ultra ATA/133 IDE RAID controller card (PCI).
However, it doesn't seem to be supported. I have connected the hard disk into the controller, including the LED busy connector into the JP1 as instructed.
The HD Busy LED works and the hard disk and CD starts up, means it is installed.
The BIOS doesn't seem to recognize that external controller. Only the first 2 fixed disk options (built-in) are available and it shows 0MB (means nothing installed. And then the system crashed after the POST, the only thing left was a black screen. (I can hardly manage to enter the BIOS setup via CTRL-ALT-ESC).
There must be some kind of conflict...
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The PCI RAID Card should have its own BIOS BOOT ROM CHIP, you appear to be getting nowhere. Maybe the PC needs pensioned off??
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