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MS-DOS 6.22 setup hangs on IBM PC/XT 5160

marcoguy said:
I am posting on here with my laptop, and that doesn't have a floppy drive to transfer files to my XT.
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USB floppy drives are really convenient.

So, to sum up, you're saying that the XT boots fine from a 3.5" DOS 3.3 disk but not from a DOS 6.22 disk. Also, you don't have another computer with a 3.5" floppy drive in it, or any floppy drive, for that matter. Is that what you are saying? If not, please elaborate since there is more than one way to skin a cat.
 
Yup, that pretty much sums it up. I will have a "tweener" system very soon as the deal is pending right now but for the time being I don't have one, unless you count my Atari 520STE. Also, 3.3 boots fine from the floppy and installs fine on the HD.
 
I know zero about Ataris but why not try booting it from the 6.22 disk? If it can run DOS it should be able to run 6.22, unlike your XT. :) That, at least, would verify the veracity of your 6.22 boot disk. BTW, is that disk (6.22) an original or a copy and if so how long have you had it and where/how did you get it?
 
Honestly, I also know very little about ataris. I don't know if it will boot DOS but I will try it later today. The disks are original (or at least I hope they are!) I bought these on eBay last week in their original packaging.
 
Belay that last request... I misread your previous post. You were referring to the XT booting fine from 3.3 and I read it as the Atari booting from 3.3. But you can try to boot the 6.22 from any other machine you might come across to test it out and if it hangs another machine.... it's the disk.
 
Stone said:
USB floppy drives are really convenient.
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Is there any known good USB floppy drive that supports 720 KB disks? I have one, but it supports only 1.44 MB disks. It might be a firmware issue - most of users will use such drives for 1.44 MB disks anyway (720 KB ones were not very popular in IBM world).

The reason I am asking is that a PC/XT/Compaq Portable will boot and work just fine with the standard floppy disk controller, 1.44 MB drive and 720 KB disks. So finding a USB drive that supports 720 KB can really help with data exchange between these systems and new computers (without complexities of using network or serial/parallel cables)

As far as your issue (of installing MS-DOS 6.22 on an XT), is it possible that fdisk is getting stuck during the setup? I believe setup runs fdisk (or similar code) at the beginning and fdisk might get stuck due to unexpected drive configuration.
 
gslick said:
http://www.teac.co.jp/dspd/product/magnetic/fd-05pub.html

Teac FD-05PUB

USB Interface ( USB Specification Rev.1.1 )
3.5 inch 720KB/1.2MB/1.44MB FDD
Click to expand...

Except that it doesn't. I have one which only supports 1.44MB floppies not the 720kB or the Japanese 1.2MB. They dropped the feature without changing the model number.

As far as I know, the only way right now to know for sure that the USB floppy supports 720kB formats is to pick up LS-120/LS-240 drives. The other choice is to hope that the vendor is correct when describing the USB floppy being sold as supporting 720kB.
 
Oh, didn't realize that Teac dropped the older format capabilities in current models.

The examples I have date back to the Windows 2000 timeframe when we got samples from Teac and I know those did support those formats when I added code to usbstor.sys and sfloppy.sys to support that.

-Glen
 
patscc said:
You could also try booting of your hard drive, and running chkdsk on the DOS 6.22 floppy to see if there are problems reading the floppy..
patscc
Click to expand...
1457664 bytes total disk space
0 bytes in 1 hidden file
1210368 bytes in 41 user files
247296 bytes available on disk

655360 bytes total memory
539296 bytes free
 
MikeS said:
I'd say that was the most likely problem since post #1... ;-)
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I was about to agree with you and Ole but when I checked my 6.22 install disk I found that it had no hidden files. Maybe they go hidden upon installing them? I'm not sure. But, I did note this:

1,457,664 bytes total disk space
1,451,008 bytes in 45 user files
6,656 bytes available on disk

654,336 bytes total memory
631,888 bytes free
 
Sounds like the OP is using 5.25" HD install disks that were copied to 3.5". I would want to find out what that hidden file is; virus would be a problem but it might be the extra FAT created by various recovery programs.
 
Stone said:
I was about to agree with you and Ole but when I checked my 6.22 install disk I found that it had no hidden files. Maybe they go hidden upon installing them? I'm not sure. But, I did note this:

1,457,664 bytes total disk space
1,451,008 bytes in 45 user files
6,656 bytes available on disk

654,336 bytes total memory
631,888 bytes free
Click to expand...
A bad disk would still be the first thing I'd check, hidden files or not (unless it came from you of course ;-) )

Easy enough to check, since I gather the hard disk boots and runs fine.

Wasn't 6.22 an upgrade? Did it require an existing version of 6.20? It's been a loooong time...
 
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MikeS said:
A bad disk would still be the first thing I'd check, hidden files or not (unless it came from you of course ;-) )

Wasn't 6.22 an upgrade? Did it require an existing version of 6.20? It's been a loooong time...
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Nope, it came from eBay. All the more reason to suspect it. :)

Although krebizfan suggests it's likely a 1.2 copied to a 1.44 that's unlikely as Marco says it was in its original packaging.

Marco, how many disks are there in your set? I've got three 1.44s and they're all full. So, if you've got four 1.44s that might be it. While I highly doubt it the eBay seller could be really slick. If that's the case you could try copying all the disks to the HD and installing from there.

And, no, I've got 6.22 full install.
 
Copy them to the HD and try the install from there. If that works you're still not done. :) You'll need to make a set of bootable 6.22 floppies so you can repartition the HD with 6.22's FDISK. And then you'll have to install (read SYS + XCOPY) the DOS files from the installed floppies to the newly partitioned HD. :)
 
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