Can someone tell me how I install DOS on a slave hard drive I have installed in my desktop?
I have a boot manager and I want to be able to boot into windows or DOS but I know it sounds silly but I dont know how to go about putting DOS onto a clean drive!!!
A step by step guide for putting DOS onto a new drive would really help me out.

Thanks in advance!

I have a boot manager ..

Doesn't the boot manager user manual tell you how to do it? Have you read it?

i_XpUser

Hi thanks for the quick reply. No the boot manager is for the drives. Sorry not to have explained that. It simply allows you to choose the drive to boot from.
I need to know how to load DOS onto my slave drive so that I can run some old dos based databases from a seperate drive.

Any ideas?

You haven't identified the brand name/make of the boot manager.

i_XpUser

Sorry the Boot manager is OSL2000. Hope that helps.

You could boot from PC DOS or MS DOS on a diskette.

Hi, thanks for the suggestion but I would rather be able to boot into DOS on the slave and keep all the databases on the slave without having to use a disk.
Basically I have set everything up so far so that when the computer boots before it tries to boot from my primary drive (windows XP loaded) , a menu appears asking me which drive I want to boot from i.e Floppy or Primary or secondary or CD.
So I want to be able to select secondary and it will boot into DOS but to do this I need to know how to load DOS onto a drive. When you boot to the secondary the computer assumes its the main drive.
So if someone could tell me how to get DOS onto a drive so that I dont have to use disks every time the problem would be solved :)

As you have not said which boot manager you are using, the following is based on my understanding of boot managers in general.

Disconnect your master HDD, install DOS on slave, reconnect master, update boot manager to include DOS as an option.

You should be OK after that.

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

Sorry I did not notice your subsequent posts notifying which boot manager your are using.

In fact that pretty much says to do it the way I have mentioned.

look here in the Multi OS Installation Guide section.

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

You could boot from PC DOS or MS DOS on a diskette.

Just an FYI - it will not work after you have installed XP.

i_XpUser

consider virtualization to keep it simple:

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news....

http://www.virtualbox.org/

Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/217...

Life is more painless for those who are brainless.

What version of DOS are you interested in using? Also, what size is the HDrive you are going to use.

Hey XpUser, you're wrong.

I run PC DOS from diskette on computers that have XP and Vista OS's.

I could run MS DOS from diskette on these same computers but have no reason to.

Doctor1954

You're rite I stand corrected. You can run it by booting to the floppy drive but can you also install it on a separate HD as this is what the OP wanted to do?

i_XpUser

How can you run DOS off a boot floppy? You can get a command prompt and run progams that fit on a floppy but DOS 6.22 is 3 floppies if memory serves me correctly.

The whole MS DOS boot diskette with CDROM support, FDISK, and FORMAT is 559KB.

The Ghost 2003 boot diskette with PC DOS is 1.15MB.

That isn't the DOS operating system though. Just a boot disk. The original poster wishes to INSTALL DOS to the HDrive. I asked the size of the drive because if DOS 6.22 is to be installed I believe the drive size will be quite limited. Probably will need to partition.

"That isn't the DOS operating system though. Just a boot disk."

You only need the following three files to have an MS-DOS Operating System, so yes running MS-DOS 6.xx from a floppy is perfectly acceptable, but limited to no LFN and FAT12/16:

command.com
io.sys
msdos.sys

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/ar...

OK
I conceed that it may be an operating system but not a complete one.

Hate to divert the thread but .... if PunK wants to run PC DOS or MS DOS, probably the EASIEST way for him/her to do it would be to run it from a diskette.

And running it from diskette can be the COMPLETE DOS OS.

Ok thank you all for your posts.

To clear a few things up:

1) the drive is 3GB so planty big enough for any DOS based OS i hope?!

2) I do not want to have to boot from a diskette. I know I dont have to either, I have just never loaded DOS onto a Hard drive before. Surley it must be straight forward?

3) The boot manager is irrelevant to the problem. I am fully aware of how the boot manager works and how to set that up.

4) I JUST NEED DOS ON A HARD DRIVE LOL!!!!

Thanks again for all your help people, is there anyone who can help me get DOS on a drive?

"To settle an arguement: you CAN run DOS on a seperate drive and boot into it without the need for diskettes!"

doh!! of course one can and have done for the last twenty years.

As a footnote without a 3rd party bootmanager MS-DOS must be on the C: drive

A final note to add to OtheHill comments. Booting DOS from a floppy only gives a small subset of the capabilities of DOS.

This is normally sufficient for configuring hard drives, updating BIOS, Copying files and similar small scale activities.

To get the full capabilities of DOS you would need to install all three diskettes (of DOS6.22) to a bootable hard drive.

My advice to the OP was to disconnect the master and intall to the slave, reconnect and update the boot loader was based on his use of a bootloader.

If he had not used a bootloader then he could have moved his XP to the slave, installed DOS to the master, run XP recovery CD and done a fixboot & fixmbr to get a dual boot with DOS and XP. This is how most people boot Win98 and XP in a dual boot configuration. This method uses the NT Bootloader provided by WinXP.

Anyway PunK I am glad you are sorted and thanks for letting us know of the outcome. The final feedback of a successful outcome is always most usefull to all.

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

"If he had not used a bootloader then he could have moved his XP to the slave, installed DOS to the master, run XP recovery CD and done a fixboot & fixmbr to get a dual boot with DOS and XP. This is how most people boot Win98 and XP in a dual boot configuration. This method uses the NT Bootloader provided by WinXP."

Yes but the C: drive will have MS-DOS and the XP drive should be C: but will now be D:. XP AFAIK will baulk at that ?????

Ok everyone, i sorted it!

I found a copy of MS-DOS 5.0 and set the slave up as a master and installed from a bootable floppy disk. I then set it back to slave and loaded the boot manager into windows xp.
Now i have a boot menu that enables me to boot into windows XP or DOS 5.0. It perceives the drives to be masters which ever one you select!

To settle an arguement: you CAN run DOS on a seperate drive and boot into it without the need for diskettes! :)

Thanks for all your help !

Hi Santa,

I believe it will not. It should configure around it. As part of fixboot & fixMBr WinXP will deposit the files needed to boot XP on the new master.

WinXP does drive letters differently anyway so you could still end up with WinXP on C: even though it would be on the slave drive now.

Mind you I have not personally tried that and thus maybe I should not have mentioned it.

May be I will try it when time permits.

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

Hi Santa,

Found the evidence here. It DOES work.

See the post at the end of the thread dated 26-Jan-2005 12:42 AM by JSntgRvr in the above link.

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

"You can install Windows Me, 98SE, 98, or 95 on a Windows XP, 2K, or NT computer that already uses only the NTFS file system"

What if XP on FAT32 ??

Just use fdisk and make a simple batch file that reads a keyboard input file to use fdisk to change the "active" partition. Remember that C: is the first active partiton not the first partition.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you goober.

FAT32 should be OK too, I am pretty sure of that.

However, I will again say I have not tried it myself.

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

Hi to all

ihave installed msdos on my slave drive recently and i can boot it.for booting i use grub.

I have two partition on my slave drive. c; and d; I CAN ACCESS C DRIVE ON SLAVE FROM MY primary disk too, which has windowsxp and linux.
Now the problem came as i could not access my D; drive from DOS itself But if i make it as master by removing cables etc.then i can access it.
can any one help?

jatsw

This I suspect is due to the fact that DOS on the slave is in a primary partition.

When you are booting from the primary partition in the master hard disk your boot manager is probably setting the slave primary to hidden.

Windows generally does not like seeing two primary active bootable partitions. Your boot manager manages it so that it hides one when it boots the other.

If you really want to see your DOS partition while booting into XP you need to rethink your drive topology.

For that to happen you would have to install DOS in the primary partition of the master hard drive and XP in the Slave. Also you would need to install DOS first then XP. This is the conventional way of doing dual / multiple boot.

Microsoft OSes only play together well if you install them in the order of their release. I.e. oldest OS first latest OS last.

What you are doing is a bit unconventional and thus your need to use a boot manager to hide OS partitions so they do not interfere with the OS you have currently selected to run with.

Hope this answers your question.

___________________________________________
☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.