Downgrading from MS-DOS 6.22 to 3.30 on my IBM 5160 XT

[seaken]

Do you want to keep the DOS 6.22 files? If so, I would first install DOS 6.22 to a CF card. Or, have floppy images of DOS 6.22 install disks as a backup.

Now, as already mentioned above by others, boot from the DOS 3.3 floppy disk. Make sure your boot disk has FDISK and FORMAT on it. Now, use FDISK to remove the partitions on the 20MB MFM drive. Next make a NEW partition on this same 20MB drive. Run FDISK /MBR on the 20 MB drive. Reboot again from the DOS 3.3 floppy. Next, run FORMAT /sys on the 20 MB drive. Finally, COPY all the files from the DOS 3.3 diskette over to the root directory of the 20MB hard drive. Take out the DOS 3.3 floppy and reboot. You should now have DOS 3.3 booting from the 20MB hard drive.

I have also used several CF cards to have several different OS's booting from whichever CF card I insert into the XTIDE. For instance, I have one CF card with DOS 5.0, one with Concurrent DOS, one with DR-DOS 5.0 and one with DOS 3.3. The Concurrent DOS and DOS 3.3 CF cards required me to clear them first, run FDISK and FDISK /MBR creating only 32MB partitions, then formatting them after booting from the DOS 3.3 diskette.

In all cases it is easiest to have a working floppy boot disk. But emulation on a modern system works also.

Seaken

 

[Zap!]

Do you want to keep the DOS 6.22 files? If so, I would first install DOS 6.22 to a CF card. Or, have floppy images of DOS 6.22 install disks as a backup.

Now, as already mentioned above by others, boot from the DOS 3.3 floppy disk. Make sure your boot disk has FDISK and FORMAT on it. Now, use FDISK to remove the partitions on the 20MB MFM drive. Next make a NEW partition on this same 20MB drive. Run FDISK /MBR on the 20 MB drive. Reboot again from the DOS 3.3 floppy. Next, run FORMAT /sys on the 20 MB drive. Finally, COPY all the files from the DOS 3.3 diskette over to the root directory of the 20MB hard drive. Take out the DOS 3.3 floppy and reboot. You should now have DOS 3.3 booting from the 20MB hard drive.

I have also used several CF cards to have several different OS's booting from whichever CF card I insert into the XTIDE. For instance, I have one CF card with DOS 5.0, one with Concurrent DOS, one with DR-DOS 5.0 and one with DOS 3.3. The Concurrent DOS and DOS 3.3 CF cards required me to clear them first, run FDISK and FDISK /MBR creating only 32MB partitions, then formatting them after booting from the DOS 3.3 diskette.

In all cases it is easiest to have a working floppy boot disk. But emulation on a modern system works also.

Seaken

I actually had 6.22 on the CF card and DOS 3.30 on the main HD already. I was talked out of keeping 3.3 and instead chose 5.0.

By pressing "D" at startup it loads from the D: drive. So what I did is download the DOS 5.0 image files on my main PC, put in the CF card and put them on, then I put the CF card back into the XT and used FDIMAGE to put them on a floppy disk.

Worked great, although there is one final oddity. If I copy a file into a directory and that file is already there, it won't ask me if I want to overwrite it. It just deletes it. Is not prompting normal for DOS 5.0?

 

[Ruud]

And keep in mind DOS 3.30 only supports 32Mb partitions

3.31 supports partitions up to 2 GB.

 

[Robin4]

I have a 5160 XT with a working original 20mb hard drive (C) and XTIDE (D). I have DOS 6.22 and all of the system files on my C: drive. The A: drive also works.

I want to go to the more era-friendly DOS 3.30. I have the installation floppies, but I don't see any "install.exe" file. Is it missing, or is that not how it works? Sorry, I'm a bit rusty.

Maybe there was a select disk included?

 

[Zap!]

Maybe there was a select disk included?

Yeah, I found a 3.30 floppy, but then went with 5.0 on the recommendation of others.

 

[seaken]

I use DOS 5.0 most of the time. It's nicer than dealing with the limitations of 3.3 such as the 32MB limit. But if you want to be period correct than 3.3 works fine too. I mostly use 3.3 with my floppy only systems, and then I make up boot disks with some utilities like VDE editor and PKUNZIP, Laplink, etc. If you have DOS 5.0 and it works then why not stay with it?

Seaken

 

[maxtherabbit]

IMO if you don't want to deal with the limitations of PC-DOS 3.3, you should just skip to the end and use PC-DOS 7/2000

 

[vwestlife]

FYI, EDIT/QBASIC, MSD, and UNDELETE from MS-DOS 6.22 all work fine in 3.3. (EDIT from Windows 95/98/ME does as well, if you have a NEC V20 or 286 or higher CPU; it locks up on an 8086 or 8088.) I'm not sure about SCANDISK, but I know DEFRAG requires DOS 5.0 or higher.

And DELTREE, MOVE, E Editor, ACALC, and QCONFIG from PC DOS 7.0/2000 work fine in 3.3, too, as well as the IBM AntiVirus for DOS that comes with it.

 

[Ruud]

And DELTREE, .... from PC DOS 7.0/2000 work fine in 3.3

Hey, didn't know that. THAT could be handy on my 3.31 systems.

Does anybody have a tool to sort directories under MS-DOS 3.3x? IIRC I had one in the 80'ies but with DOS 5.0 and certainly with 6.xx there was no need for it any more. It loaded the data right from the FAT, sorted it and wrote the result back.

 

[seaken]

Hey, didn't know that. THAT could be handy on my 3.31 systems.

Does anybody have a tool to sort directories under MS-DOS 3.3x? IIRC I had one in the 80'ies but with DOS 5.0 and certainly with 6.xx there was no need for it any more. It loaded the data right from the FAT, sorted it and wrote the result back.

I've always just used Laplink. Probably because it came with my first PC, which was a Tandy 1400FD portable. It's small and fits on a 720k disk with DOS 3.3 It has a utility named "Z" that runs a tree display and saves it to disk.

Seaken

 

[Zap!]

Hey, didn't know that. THAT could be handy on my 3.31 systems.

Does anybody have a tool to sort directories under MS-DOS 3.3x? IIRC I had one in the 80'ies but with DOS 5.0 and certainly with 6.xx there was no need for it any more. It loaded the data right from the FAT, sorted it and wrote the result back.

LFNSORT was the best, but not sure if it works on the XT or older DOS.

 

[Svenska]

IIRC I had one in the 80'ies but with DOS 5.0 and certainly with 6.xx there was no need for it any more.

I've misused DEFRAG for it (the /SN switch), but it probably won't work in DOS 3.x.

 

[Zap!]

If you have DOS 5.0 and it works then why not stay with it?

As stated in my OP and replies after, I do want to stay with it. I started off with DOS 6.22, that was the one that I didn't want to stay with. I switched to 3.30, then was told that 5.0 is the better fit, so I'm using that now.

 

[Zap!]

There seems to be a fundamental flaw (at least for me) with 5.0. When copying a file to a directory with that same file in it, it just overwrites it. It doesn't prompt me something like "blah.exe already exists. Do you want to overwrite it?" Is this because DOS 5 doesn't do that, and what is the way around it, if anything?

 

[Malc]

There seems to be a fundamental flaw (at least for me) with 5.0. When copying a file to a directory with that same file in it, it just overwrites it. It doesn't prompt me something like "blah.exe already exists. Do you want to overwrite it?" Is this because DOS 5 doesn't do that, and what is the way around it, if anything?

I remember that 'Feature ?' of DOS 5.0, I also remember many years ago i had a drive with a full install of DOS 6x and for giggles i booted up using DOS 5.0 setup disks, After answering a couple of Q's setup merrily went on its way installing DOS 5.0 with NO mention of there being an OS already on the drive, The DOS 6x files were silently replaced with DOS 5.0 files of the same name and all other DOS 6x files were left untouched on the drive, It worked but was very untidy. Back then i preferred DOS 3.3 over 5.0x.

 

[Zap!]

I remember that 'Feature ?' of DOS 5.0, I also remember many years ago i had a drive with a full install of DOS 6x and for giggles i booted up using DOS 5.0 setup disks, After answering a couple of Q's setup merrily went on its way installing DOS 5.0 with NO mention of there being an OS already on the drive, The DOS 6x files were silently replaced with DOS 5.0 files of the same name and all other DOS 6x files were left untouched on the drive, It worked but was very untidy. Back then i preferred DOS 3.3 over 5.0x.

Do you remember if "move" from DOS 6x still worked? 5.0 doesn't have it, and I miss it a bit. Also, why did you prefer 3.3 over 5.0?

 

[Malc]

It's been a long time but i don't think it did, I think MSD worked in DOS 5.0 and maybe a couple of other's from DOS 6x but not sure what now, You might want to look at the 'Free DOS' project and try the 'Move' program from there with DOS 5.0. Back then i preferred 3.3 because i used software that didn't work properly in 5.0, When I moved onto DOS 6x i never looked back

 

[jafir]

MSD was included with other products, like Windows 3.1 and Word for DOS, so I’m pretty sure it should work on any version of DOS that was supported to run those.

Windows 3.1 had version 2.00
MS-DOS 6.22 has version 2.11

It was also included with Win9x and so the latest version I’ve been able to find was in windows 98SE (the windows ME version is the same 2.14 version). Also the windows 9x versions no longer display the OS version, only the windows version.

 

[seaken]

I don't remember DOS asking about overwriting existing files. You just had to be careful and know that if you didn't pay attention you'd overwrite your existing files. I did not use DOS 6.x so I probably missed that feature from that version. But this is why users usually used something like PC Tools or Norton Commander, or maybe 4DOS, etc. Those were utilities that added some nicer file management features than what was included by default in DOS.

Seaken

 

[seaken]

As stated in my OP and replies after, I do want to stay with it. I started off with DOS 6.22, that was the one that I didn't want to stay with. I switched to 3.30, then was told that 5.0 is the better fit, so I'm using that now.

Ahh, ok. I didn't catch that you ended up staying with DOS 5.0.

Seaken