This is starting to tick me off. Here's my situation.
I've got a machine with a minimal MS-DOS 6.2 system on it with CDROM drivers, so I can run Windows NT setup. All goes well, until it needs to copy a file CDROM.SYS. It can't find it. I try just about everything. Finally, I decide that there may simple be a problem with the CDROM drive, so I go through the trouble of setting up the DOS Microsoft networking client, and decide to try installing over the network. The file copied OK to the network folder on a Windows NT 4 Server. So the CD itself proved alright. Now get this, everything is okay doing the network install, and I get the same error message, cannot copy CDROM.SYS, so I figure, since I'm installing over the network, I'll ignore this.

Setup continues, reboots the machine and now cannot find CDROM.SYS. It says press any key to restart.

Now fortunatle my DOS config is still there, so I try to use the copy command to copy it from the network drive. Doesn't work >:-(
"Invalid device request" Same thing when I try to copy from the CDROM, or from a floppy disk. The file is clearly there, I can see it on the server, and with a DIR command from DOS.

Why the heck won't it copy?

If nobody can figure this out, somebody is going to be stuck with an MS-DOS 6.2 client on the network.

Hi,

If I'm understanding you, the cdrom.sys file copy from CD to HD fails, right?

If you are not installing to an empty HD, is it possible that cdrom.sys already exists and is 'read-only'?

The way I install NT is to copy the i386 dir to HD and install from there.

It's quicker and avoids read / copy errors.

HTH

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

Would it not be easier to use the 3 NT4 Boot Floppy Disks, especially as NT4 does not use MSDOS files.

Navigate to the CD drive, insert the NT4 CD and type:

WINNT.EXE

you will need 3 formatted 1.44 floppies...

It normally would be... 'cept they made it puke when I tried them. Blue Screen of Death.

BTW, I was able to copy the files with a Windows 98 boot disk. So...
"copy d:\i386\cdrom.sys" would work with Windows 98's DOS, but not with MS-DOS 6.2.
I wound up skipping the file, and copying it to the temp dirs aftewards. Setup continued, and everything works great now.

Funny thing I've noticed about WinNT's setup. It won't run with a Win98 boot disk, so I have to use the DOS disk, yet when I booted up with the DOS disk, it couldn't copy CDROM.SYS (that was the ONLY file it couldn't copy), yet the Win98 disk could...

I was scratching my head at that...

Hi,

I'm scratching right along with you.

Glad you figured it out.

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

With NT/W2K (and even XP...) errors relating to finding/copying "any" file during setup are usually due to problems with the installed RAM; seldom are they to do with the CD itself.

Ideally swap out RAM to a single stick (min of 32Meg) and see if it goes in OK; try each stick in turn; even "beg/borrow/s...l" a known good stick or more to check out the RAM issue...

Copying the i386 to the drive frequently circumvents the issue (for setup/installation) - but it's more than likely to re-emerge later in some way or other.

I seem also to recall that NT4 flopppies are a very cut down/minimal dos installation...; and they obviously do include a suitable CDROM driver.

Did the dos bootdisk have CDROM driver(s) included (version/s that is/are OK for your CDROM)?

Typically a '98 bootdisk does have suitable drivers included - though not all of them may...

To make the NT 3 setup floppies from the CD:

Access the i386 on the CD and type: winnt /ox

- at the a: or c: prompt type:

c:\i386\winnt /ox

This can be done via any working OS; or a suitable bootdisk that allows you acess to the CD.

Or simply set bios option to a CD boot (if allowed) and install from the CD.

One other thought re' why dos couldn't copy the cdrom.sys and '98 could...? These bootdisk files load themselves into RAM; dos uses less of it than '98; possibly where dos wanted to park the driver is not OK for it, but is happy to park other files - if dos used that far into RAM. '98 may well have opted to park the cdrom.sys file to another memory address - one that is further into the RAM address sequences (than may have ben used by dos), and thus appears OK...?