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DOS Boot Disks for IBM 5150 PC - NEEDED!

C

cudasales

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 3, 2008
Messages
306
Location
Colorado, USA
I have an IBM 5150 PC Computer System
I am looking for 5.25" DOS Disks that will allow the computer to boot
From my research the computer has 160kb Full Height Floppy Disk Drives (Original Drives) from what I can see all of my current 5.25" Floppy Disks are 1.2mb which will not work.

Looking to buy Original DOS Disks or if someone is willing to make a boot disk on the correct floppy it would be very much appreciated and I will be happy to pay for the shipping.

Any advice would be appreciated.
 
Even if I plug it into another machine I still need a 160kb floppy disk to create the boot disk as that particular floppy disk drive will only read 160kb floppy disks and not the 720kb or 1.2mb versions from what I understand.

Stone said:
You might be able to plug one of those floppies into another machine to make the boot disk(s).
Click to expand...
 
You might be confusing diskette type with diskette format. There are effectively only two types of 5.25 floppy disks, double density (160/180/320/360/720kB) and high density (1.2MB), so as long as the diskette in question is not a 1.2HD type it should work; do you have any '720kB' diskettes?.

With the proper parameters you might even be able to create a boot disk on another computer even if it only has a 1.2HD drive; it's even worth a try to use a 1.2HD diskette if that's all you have.
 
You don't need a 160KB floppy original to make a bootable 160KB DOS disk. If you can mount the single sided drive in another system with DOS installed, just do a FORMAT /S on a disk in the single sided drive. Works the same as creating any other bootable floppy except there won't be much room for utilities.

I think the full command would be FORMAT B: /1 /8 /S but you should confirm with the specific DOS version you plan to use if the SSDD drive was installed as B:.

Anyone else would have to do the same thing but you already have a correct drive and disks in hand.
 
Mike S.
All of the 5.25" Floppies that I currently have are the 1.2Mb versions which have not worked in this particular drive. I am going to dig around and see if I have a 720kb floppy but at this point, all I came up with were the 1.2mb versions. If I remember from back in the day, I thought we used Single Density or Single Sided SSSD in the very early PCs but I could be wrong.
Thanks for the advice.
 
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There should be IMDs of PC-DOS 1.1 around. Works very comfortably on a 160K floppy. (they were single-sided double-density (SSDD)). Single density is a very different thing (a modulation scheme, rather than a property of the medium) You ran into single-density (FM) a lot on 8" CP/M formats, for example.
 
cudasales said:
Mike S.
All of the 5.25" Floppies that I currently have are the 1.2Mb versions which have not worked in this particular drive. I am going to dig around and see if I have a 720kb floppy but at this point, all I came up with were the 1.2mb versions. If I remember from back in the day, I thought we used Single Density or Low Density in the very early PCs but I could be wrong.
Thanks for the advice.
Click to expand...
No, you want 360k floppies, not 720k. 720k is 3.5" format, not 5.25". And, you're not likely to find any single sided disks, just double sided. But you can format the double sided disk on just one side and effectively have a single sided disk.
 
cudasales said:
Mike S.
All of the 5.25" Floppies that I currently have are the 1.2Mb versions which have not worked in this particular drive.
Click to expand...
Well, they do have to be formatted as 160kB diskettes, but HD diskettes in a DD drive is definitely iffy; was worth a try though. Sounds like you should get some DD diskettes, you're going to need them anyway; why not PM Stone?

(There is a 720kB 5.25" format, BTW, usually mis-named QD)
 
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WOW! After digging around I just came across 2 boxes full of Brand New and Sealed 5.25" DSDD formatted floppy disks. A total of 200 disks. I guess it pays to hold on to a few old things. Lol
DSDD.jpg
 
MikeS said:
(There is a 720kB 5.25" format, BTW, usually mis-named QD)
Click to expand...

... and of course there are 96 tpi single-sided 5¼" disks and single sided 135 tpi 3½" disks that are 360K.

All very confusing. I'm surprised that there was never a widely-accepted method for describing floppies in terms of physical size, format, and recording method. After all, most 8" drives are 48 tpi...
 
cudasales said:
WOW! After digging around I just came across 2 boxes full of Brand New and Sealed 5.25" DSDD formatted floppy disks. A total of 200 disks. I guess it pays to hold on to a few old things. Lol
View attachment 8081
Click to expand...
There ya go; if you're lucky you'll be able to make a bootable disk from Dave's image on a 1.2MB drive if that's all you've got, as long as it's formatted as 160kB.

Good luck!
 
After going through every box of my 5.25" disks, I don't have a single DOS disk but I came across a box of 10 NEW 1S/2D Memorex Disks. Im going to put an early PC-DOS or MS-DOS image on it and see if it works. I will follow up and let you know.
Thanks
 
The 1S/2D Memorex with DOS worked perfect and now I have an old 360kb Floppy Disk that I can use on my old systems again.
Thanks again for the help.
 
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