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DR-DOS 7.03 installation question

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richo132

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May 19, 2007
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Hi, I have a Connor IDE drive that MS DOS will not format - "Track 0 Bad" error.
To get around this problem, I have loaded DR-DOS 5. This version of DR-DOS allowed me to choose where to put the boot files. Is this feature available with version 7.03 ?

Reason for asking is that I want to run Win3.11, and I have not been able to get this to install under DR-DOS 5 - Win3.11 install fails after loading from diskette 2.
Cheers.
 
richo132 said:
Hi, I have a Connor IDE drive that MS DOS will not format - "Track 0 Bad" error.
To get around this problem, I have loaded DR-DOS 5. This version of DR-DOS allowed me to choose where to put the boot files. Is this feature available with version 7.03 ?

Reason for asking is that I want to run Win3.11, and I have not been able to get this to install under DR-DOS 5 - Win3.11 install fails after loading from diskette 2.
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Try using FDISK /MBR then do a FDISK on that Conner and let us know what happens.
 
richo132 said:
Hi, I have a Connor IDE drive that MS DOS will not format - "Track 0 Bad" error.
To get around this problem, I have loaded DR-DOS 5. This version of DR-DOS allowed me to choose where to put the boot files. Is this feature available with version 7.03 ?

Reason for asking is that I want to run Win3.11, and I have not been able to get this to install under DR-DOS 5 - Win3.11 install fails after loading from diskette 2.
Cheers.
Click to expand...
What type of system are you installing it on? 286, 368 etc?
 
richo132 said:
Toshiba T5200C - the BIOS only supports 3 drive types :(
Click to expand...
Looks like you can install larger ones. http://www.drivesolutions.com/cgi/s...ems&kind=tol&pos=0&type=itemid&itemid=tol3750

Might need drive overlay software though.

The Win 3.11 install issue just may be because a gotcha MS put in to the install routine to detect whether or not it was an MS Dos variant. There was a patch for DrDos 6 and later to overcome this IIRC. A bit of history- http://www.fact-index.com/d/dr/dr_dos.html

No harm in trying DrDos 7.03 I guess:- ftp://ftp.fsn.hu/pub/OpenDOS/DR-DOS.703/images/

Believe it or not, when time permits, independent programmers are still enhancing DrDos http://www.drdosprojects.de
 
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Agent Orange said:
Try using FDISK /MBR then do a FDISK on that Conner and let us know what happens.
Click to expand...

When booted from MS DOS 6.22 floppy, "fdisk /mbr" executes with no message on screen.
BTW the Connor drive is currently in a 486DX PC because the T5200C FDD will not read any diskettes.
(NB the FDD issue is not resolved by use of the A-B-Ext switch.)
These ancient Toshiba FDDs are unusual in that they have a 26pin IDC connector and cannot be simply swapped out for a standard 34pin FDD.
If anyone has a hardware hack or work around for that I'd be pleased to hear it - but that's a different story for another post.
 
Caluser2000 said:
Looks like you can install larger ones. http://www.drivesolutions.com/cgi/s...ems&kind=tol&pos=0&type=itemid&itemid=tol3750
I think this page might be mixing up 2 different PCs.
The spec shown matches my T5200C - another reference and picture here: www.toshiba.ca/web/pdf/Toshibacatalogue1985.pdf
However the drives shown as upgrades are 2.5" notebook drives - not 3.5" desktop drives.
I do have some old 2.5" drives however, so I might check that idea out.

Might need drive overlay software though.
Yes - not too keen on this approach as I had bad experiences with it some years ago.

The Win 3.11 install issue just may be because a gotcha MS put in to the install routine to detect whether or not it was an MS Dos variant. There was a patch for DrDos 6 and later to overcome this IIRC. A bit of history- http://www.fact-index.com/d/dr/dr_dos.html

No harm in trying DrDos 7.03 I guess:- ftp://ftp.fsn.hu/pub/OpenDOS/DR-DOS.703/images/
I have a copy of DRDOS 7.03 but can't work out how to start the boot partition other than at track 0.

Believe it or independent programmers are still enhancing DrDos http://www.drdosprojects.de
Click to expand...

Thanks for your suggestions.
 
What sort of expansion is available inside? Can you fit an 8 bit isa fdd controller card in them?
 
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Caluser2000 said:
What sort of expansion is available inside? Can you fit an 8 bit isa fdd controller card in them?
Click to expand...

It is quite a large beast - huge by today's standards and has 3 expansion slots.
One full length (!) ISA 16bit slot - I believe this is a standard I/F
One half length ISA 8bit slot - not sure whether this is a standard I/F
One Toshiba proprietary slot - I think this was designed for a Toshiba modem.
I have an 8bit XTIDE adaptor (sourced from VC Forum) and a couple of 16bit AT IDE adaptor cards - and even a SCSI adaptor with own BIOS.
I tried to hook up HD/FD drives using this approach a few weeks ago with no success and gave up.
NB One issue with this as a permanent solution would be routing the ribbon cables - a problem that could probably solved though if there are no better options.
I had also wanted to install a network adaptor.
BTW I also tried to work around the non-functioning FDD using a NIC with boot ROM..
But this is getting a bit off topic - maybe should start another post :)
Issue I'm chasing here is how to specify the start of the boot partition under DRDOS 7.03
 
Ole Juul said:
Doesn't DRDOS 7.03 run on 16 bit FAT? That's a generic file system and any version of FDISK should work just fine.
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell from usage:
DRDOS 5.0 FDISK(R1.50) allows to set start cylinder # for primary partition and end cylinder # for size
DRDOS 7.03 FDISK (R 2.3)allows to set size of primary partition but not the start cylinder
Maybe I am missing something in the user interface...
Are there any special switches for DRDOS 7.03 FDISK ?
 
richo132 said:
As far as I can tell from usage:
DRDOS 5.0 FDISK(R1.50) allows to set start cylinder # for primary partition and end cylinder # for size
DRDOS 7.03 FDISK (R 2.3)allows to set size of primary partition but not the start cylinder
Maybe I am missing something in the user interface...
Are there any special switches for DRDOS 7.03 FDISK ?
Click to expand...
Read up on the FDISK command in DOSBOOK http://www.drdos.net/documentation/qkstart/05ugch5.htm

Instructions for 7.02 but 7.03 shouldn't differ that much I'd imagine http://www.drdos.net/documentation/usergeng/28ugbapp.htm
Just don't put in the partition size and you should get prompted for a start and finish cylinder.

Doesn't 7.03 install over the top of 5 at all using existing the existing partitioning scheme? It shouldn't refuse to install like MS Dos does but may give a notice to update an existing system using the INSTALL command at the dos prompt. Also saves the existing setup if you want to back out at some stage in the future.
 
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Perhaps I'm missing something, but doesn't the MBR specifically have to be in sector 1 of side 0 of cylinder 0, (or the first LBA sector) regardless of what OS's are installed and where their boot records and system files are located?

If the BIOS can't read track 0 how will it know where the starting cylinder of any partition is?

What did change around DOS 5 is that the DOS *System* files no longer had to be at the beginning of a DOS root directory; perhaps that's confusing things?

BTW, I've had a non-standard drive in my T3100e for years using a DDO with never a problem; maybe you might re-explore that option...
 
I too think there is something amiss here. The original post says:

Hi, I have a Connor IDE drive that MS DOS will not format - "Track 0 Bad" error.
To get around this problem, I have loaded DR-DOS 5. This version of DR-DOS allowed me to choose where to put the boot files. Is this feature available with version 7.03 ?

Reason for asking is that I want to run Win3.11, and I have not been able to get this to install under DR-DOS 5 - Win3.11 install fails after loading from diskette 2.
Cheers.
Click to expand...

If some format program says "Track 0 Bad", I'd get a second opinion. IOW, try some other format programs. There is nothing that says you need to use the one that comes with the OS.
 
Caluser2000 said:
Read up on the FDISK command in DOSBOOK http://www.drdos.net/documentation/qkstart/05ugch5.htm

Instructions for 7.02 but 7.03 shouldn't differ that much I'd imagine http://www.drdos.net/documentation/usergeng/28ugbapp.htm
Just don't put in the partition size and you should get prompted for a start and finish cylinder.

Doesn't 7.03 install over the top of 5 at all using existing the existing partitioning scheme? It shouldn't refuse to install like MS Dos does but may give a notice to update an existing system using the INSTALL command at the dos prompt. Also saves the existing setup if you want to back out at some stage in the future.
Click to expand...

Right well armed with the User Guide I've made a bit of progress.
DRDOS 7.03 does allow you to specify start & end cylinders for the primary partition (you need to leave partition size blank to then be asked for cyl refs)
BTW there is an extended/advanced form of DRDOS FDISK which is invoked by FDISK /X - this provides extra features for FAT32 and non-DOS partitions
After setting the primary partition parms, FDISK automatically proceeds to format it.
This process was completed without problems so I then transferred the OS files with "SYS c:"
This also seemed to complete without problem, although command.com wasn't transferred and had to be copied separately.
On reboot, OS stopped loading after showing ~"Share should be loaded for big drives" and the system froze.
Setting up a share entry in autoexec.bat made no difference.
Also tried FDISK with 5.00 and SYS with 7.03 - froze on boot as above.
So, I think there must be a significant architectural difference between DRDOS 5.00 and 7.03.
Primary partition starting at cylinder 1 works for DRDOS 5.0, but not for DRDOS 7.03.
 
MikeS said:
Perhaps I'm missing something, but doesn't the MBR specifically have to be in sector 1 of side 0 of cylinder 0, (or the first LBA sector) regardless of what OS's are installed and where their boot records and system files are located?

If the BIOS can't read track 0 how will it know where the starting cylinder of any partition is?

What did change around DOS 5 is that the DOS *System* files no longer had to be at the beginning of a DOS root directory; perhaps that's confusing things?

BTW, I've had a non-standard drive in my T3100e for years using a DDO with never a problem; maybe you might re-explore that option...
Click to expand...

Looks like using a DDO might be my best option afterall - which product are you using ?
 
Interesting and thanks for sharing. It may be possible to use Geoworks Ensemble or it's later offsprings if you really wanted to fit a Gui along with DRDos 5 just for something different. This is currently sold as Breadbox Ensemble and they have a trial version you can download to test it out. Not as many applications as Windows but is useful non the less and compliments DrDos quite well. It has a Motif user interface, along with the default "Industry Standard" one in later variants, which I use to give older systems a real retro look and feel. I've even run it on a XT at one point. A bit about it at http://geoscentral.com/ I've found Ontrack DDO to be a very good on one of my 486s with larger dives.
 
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richo132 said:
Looks like using a DDO might be my best option afterall - which product are you using ?
Click to expand...
Same as Caluser, Ontrack Disk Manager IIRC.

I still don't quite understand what this is all about with all these different versions of DOS etc. Presumably track 0 is not really bad, at least not completely; you say MS-DOS FORMAT reports an error, so I assume that FDISK worked fine and there were no errors creating the partition(s) that you are trying to format?

Have you run any diagnostics on this drive by any chance?
 
I'm with MikeS - there's something fishy here. A disk scan will tell you the health of track 0. I have a feeling though that the real problem is an artefact of some other situation such as drive geometry. If I'm right about that then overlay software might indeed solve the problem. ANYDRIVE.EXE (12K zip) is small and easy to use. Others here like it and I've used it a number of times. Use any hard disk with any BIOS.
 
MikeS said:
Same as Caluser, Ontrack Disk Manager IIRC.

I still don't quite understand what this is all about with all these different versions of DOS etc. Presumably track 0 is not really bad, at least not completely; you say MS-DOS FORMAT reports an error, so I assume that FDISK worked fine and there were no errors creating the partition(s) that you are trying to format?

Have you run any diagnostics on this drive by any chance?
Click to expand...

I have tried to run MSDOS 6.22 Scandisk - it failed with a message about unfixable disk errors (can't remember exact wording).
Is there another diagnostic utility that would be worth trying ?

BTW found this reference which appears relevant to why DR-DOS 5.0 can still work when MS DOS reports track 0 bad
(source: http://www.drdos.com/dosdoc/sysprog/chap1.htm)
"Diskettes formatted with the DR-DOS FORMAT program, automatically have the bootstrap loader placed in their boot sector. The FORMAT program can also copy the IBMBIO.COM, IBMDOS.COM and COMMAND.COM files to the formatted disk. The supplied BOOTSTRAP routine only requires that the three files are present in the root directory of the disk, their location on the disk is not critical."
I only have a shallow knowledge of this stuff but could it be that the DR-DOS footprint in the boot sector is smaller than MSDOS and avoids the bad disk block(s) ?
 
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