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MS DOS on 5.25 floppy

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uncleseth

Experienced Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
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50
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KY
Hi,

Is it possible to copy MS DOS 6.2 from 3.5 disks to 5.25 disks? Or what is the easiest way to get a copy of DOS 5.0 or higher on 5.25 floppies?

Thanks,
 
Yes I do it with DOS 6.22. I just "format (drive) /u /s" and it will make a bootable disk. Then copy the rest of files you need to the disk. DOS 6.22 will also format on a 160K 1 sided drive also by using some more commands(i forgot, its been awhile) in the format command.
 
What about the difference in file sizes? The disk #1 3.5 has over 1.3mb of files on it. Can I just copy what fits or would that lead to an installation issue further down the road? I have 3 3.5 disks and they all have over 1.2mb of files on them.

Thanks,
 
You need to be *running* the version of DOS you are going to copy to the floppy. The format <drive> /s formats and copies the two system files to the floppy which make it bootable, (along with the file command.com.) You can copy the latter and the rest of the files yourself over as many diskettes as you need.

If you don't have the required version of DOS running on your system you are in a bit of a pickle, but perhaps someone else has a cunning plan?
 
My Packard Bell 486 is running Dos 6.2. I have Dos 6.2 on three 3.5 floppies. I can successfully format a 5.25 and transfer the system files OK. When I go to either copy or xcopy the other files, I get access denied and back to the prompt I go. Sounds like it won't work for some reason. Any other ideas?

Thanks,
 
It's not MS-DOS but where is a link for disk imgs for FreeDos
http://odin.fdos.org/.

This site has images for 160kb to 2.88Mb floppies.

Since I have switched to FreeDOS I have never looked back to MS-DOS.

Joe
 
I would assume you have tried copying the files from 3.5 to a hard disk directory and then back to the 5.25 floppy?

Can't say I've seen that error before in DOS. Is there anything unusual about your system regarding floppy drive hardware?

Google tells me it may have to do with read-only file attributes. Don't know how though ?

Oh, also (since I've been messing with a very similar situation) most of the files on the 6.2 install disks are compressed, not that this fact should stop a copy or xcopy *.* command from working.

Lastly, thinking out loud, do you have a "share" line in your config.sys?
 
Last edited:
what i would do is this.. open up winimage and load your DOS 1.44MB images into it. remove unneeded files to make it fit onto a smaller disk then change the images format in winimage to the disk size you want.. write the disk. then boot from it in the machine, fdisk and format the hard drive.

go back to winimage, split up all the DOS installer files onto as many smaller disks as you need. make a temp folder on that hard drive in the machine, copy all the files from all the smaller disks to it and run SETUP from the hard drive.

delete temp folder. enjoy!
 
I've got DOS 5.0 UPGRADE on 5.25 floppies, if you'd be interested in images or copies of it. I think I even have 6.22 Upgrade on high-density floppies.

Otherwise, why not just add a 3.5 drive long enough to install DOS on your HDD? Don't need to make it pretty, just operate with the cover off until you're done, then take the mod out.

--Jack
 
If you don't have a 3.5" drive, I could help you there. :)

The reason I have all this PC stuff is because I used to service them, so now I'm trying to sell extras.
 
wmmullaney said:
ashbourn, what is your opinion of freedos? Why is it so much better than DOS? Will it run early windows?
Click to expand...

I was never a huge fan of the any DOS other then MS-DOS. Mostly because other builds of DOS lagged behind MS-DOS in terms of features and support.

In truth there is not a whole lot of change in FreeDOS from MS-DOS. I have found FreeDOS to be stable and problem free. It also has a very small footprint so I can use it on almost any x86 setup.
The cd-rom img on their site comes with a alot of software and built in support. The link I posted earlier was single floppy imgs, there is a readme somewhere there with what each img has.

It will run early windows and I have heard of it being used to run windows 95 but I have not tried it.

I never have had a ton of use for windows 3.1 and earlier other then for a few pieces of software. So I tend to use OpenGEM when I want to work in a DOS GUI. OpenGem has also had a number of great progream released that has allowed my 286 to do so much more then it ever could.

So I guess give it a try if you want to play around www.freedos.org

Joe
 
wmmullaney said:
ashbourn, what is your opinion of freedos? Why is it so much better than DOS? Will it run early windows?
Click to expand...

i don't like freeDOS. from what i understand it has issues even running the 3.xx series of windows, although i have not tried that theory myself. my favorite DOS is DR-DOS 7.03 from Caldera. it is available for free:

www.drdos.net

what got me hooked on it is the fact that it lets me use 1.44 MB floppies on a 16-bit I/O controller even in an 8088 where the BIOS doesn't support it.
 
uncleseth said:
My Packard Bell 486 is running Dos 6.2. I have Dos 6.2 on three 3.5 floppies. I can successfully format a 5.25 and transfer the system files OK. When I go to either copy or xcopy the other files, I get access denied and back to the prompt I go. Sounds like it won't work for some reason. Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Click to expand...
-----
Access denied suggests that a file is locked for some reason; share could well be the problem.

Try a clean boot, either from the 3.5 floppies or by temporarily renaming config.sys & autoexec.bat on the HD (assuming you don't need any special drivers to read the HD).

One way of splitting up the disks (assuming you want to copy the \DOS directory) is to turn on all the archive attributes (in \DOS, attrib +a *.*) and then xcopy with the /M switch (after you make the boot disk of course with format /s, and maybe put at least the fdisk and format commands on it).

m
 
I don't know if this helps, but Microsoft has the file listings by disk for some of their older operting systems. It helped me when I had some bad files on disk #3 of Windows 3.0 which is on 5.25" floppys and all I could find was the 3.5" set.
 
Mike Chambers said:
from what i understand it has issues even running the 3.xx series of windows, although i have not tried that theory myself.
Click to expand...

I think you are talking about the 386 and 3.11 issue they had. From what I hear they got over most of that issue. Something about the co-processor or something.

Joe
 
Mike Chambers said:
i don't like freeDOS. from what i understand it has issues even running the 3.xx series of windows, although i have not tried that theory myself. my favorite DOS is DR-DOS 7.03 from Caldera. it is available for free:

www.drdos.net

what got me hooked on it is the fact that it lets me use 1.44 MB floppies on a 16-bit I/O controller even in an 8088 where the BIOS doesn't support it.
Click to expand...

I was all excited to try FreeDOS - and then by the 28th option screen in the setup program I lost interest. I'll have to give it another shot one day.

If anybody is planning on trying FreeDOS, be prepared to not have anything better to do for most of an hour if you want to do the full install.
 
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