Old Skool MS-DOS Issues... Help for the sake of nostalgia!

C

compaqman

Member
Hey guys, I happened to run across a really old computer I had in the basement, and its got a 486sx, with 8 megs of RAM. It runs fine and all but for one thing...

It runs MS-DOS 6.x and Windows 3.1, but there were multiple issues with drivers and such. So I decided to re-build it physically, you know, remove small amounts of corrosion, dust..

I put it back together, and it ran just fine. I had taken the HDD out and formatted it on a Win 98 computer with the FAT system.

Whenever I put the MS DOS 6.2 diskette in*, it says, "Replace System Disk and Reboot" or something like that. I made a MS-DOS boot diskette on a Windows XP machine**, and it has no problem booting from that.

I'm not sure how to get that sucker to boot from a MS-DOS 6.x diskette.*

*Yes it is the right diskette :) With the correct formatting :)
**When I load the COMMAND file from the Windows XP-made boot diskette, and replace it with the MS-DOS diskette, and view the directory, everything is there, and when I type "Setup" it tells me to boot directly from the diskette, which I cannot do, hence this post :)

Its not imperative that this machine works, its just something to have to match my Amiga 1000, and Tandy 1000.

I have done quite a bit of trial and error, but way to much to type here.

So thanks for putting up with this!

Thanks, Jon
 
It seems that, for whatever reason, your install disk isn't bootable.

I would download a 6.22 bootdisk from here: bootdisk.com, then once booted, insert your DOS disk and run setup.

If you need additional help, you might try posting over at The Vintage Computer forum. Lots of "old skool" guys hang out there.
 
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From what it sounds like, you don't have the machine set to boot to the right disk drive. I'd check in the BIOS to see if the settings are correct.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, I got the problem solved! It was a bad system file on the 1st install diskette, so I found it, replaced it, and we're good to go!

Thanks, Jon
 
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