• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

MS-DOS - Copy from 1.44MB 3.5" disks to 360KB 5.25&quot

Super-Slasher

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Messages
222
Location
Ontario, Canada... the frosty north.
I have in my possession MS-DOS v6.22 on 3.5" floppies, and I want to install said OS on my '84 IBM AT. Problem: my IBM at this time only takes 5.25" floppy disks, and at the same time, all I have in my possession is the double-density (360KB) kinds of 5.25" disks.

While it is obvious that I can copy files from the 3.5" to the 5.25" disks, what files from the first 3.5" disk would I need to copy onto the 5.25" disk to make it bootable/executable for the installation of MS-DOS to proceed? If this can be done, and I put all the other installation files on other 5.25" floppies, will the DOS installation go smoothly - instead of having 20 files on one disk for example, having the same 20 spread over 3 different disks?

Does anyone have MS-DOS (any version) on 360KB disks that they could zip and send me? LOL

Kidding, but any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
What I'd do, would be to simply just copy every file onto the 5.25" disks, and then copy them onto the harddrive of the AT, and then attempt to install from there. I can't say for sure this'll work, of course, but that would probably be my first attempt.

Though, obviously, you should be running no higher than MS-DOS 3.1 on an AT, to keep with authenticity :wink: ...
 
I'm not sure exactly how your systems are set up, but I'll assume that you have a box that will boot the 3.5" disks that has a 5.25" drive on it.

If so, boot DOS on your machine and format a 5.25 using the /s option. This will make the 5.25" a bootable DOS disk.

Then copy over at least FORMAT.COM and FDISK.EXE. You can then boot your AT with that disk then FDISK (to define the disk as a DOS drive) and then format it (using /s again).

The rest of the DOS files can be moved over piecemeal.

I do have several versions of DOS on 5.25 360K drive but most of my machines are inaccessible at the moment. I should be able to make copies in a month or three. . . :)

Good luck!

Erik
 
Thomas Hillebrandt said:
What I'd do, would be to simply just copy every file onto the 5.25" disks, and then copy them onto the harddrive of the AT, and then attempt to install from there. I can't say for sure this'll work, of course, but that would probably be my first attempt.

Though, obviously, you should be running no higher than MS-DOS 3.1 on an AT, to keep with authenticity :wink: ...

That would probably be the easiest thing to do, but I have absolutely no idea how to use IBM BASIC to transfer the files fromy floppy to the HD's. I've given up on the IBM BASIC, which is why I really want MS-DOS on it.

... and you're right - MS-DOS v3.0 or so would be better to use on it, but all I have is 6.22 at this point, and it was quite hard even to get my hands on that.

Erik said:
I'm not sure exactly how your systems are set up, but I'll assume that you have a box that will boot the 3.5" disks that has a 5.25" drive on it.

If so, boot DOS on your machine and format a 5.25 using the /s option. This will make the 5.25" a bootable DOS disk.

Then copy over at least FORMAT.COM and FDISK.EXE. You can then boot your AT with that disk then FDISK (to define the disk as a DOS drive) and then format it (using /s again).

The rest of the DOS files can be moved over piecemeal.

Tried and done, but the ol' IBM won't seem to boot from any 5.25" boot disk I make.

Strangely enough, if I try hooking up a 3.5" drive to the AT and use the original setup disk for MS-DOS, it'll boot up only partially - it'll read the disk and display "Starting MS-DOS..." on the monitor, but it'll freeze/stop soon after before doing anything else. I suspect because the AT can only read low density 720KB 3.5" disks and not the 1.44MB standard/high density disks they're written on.

I do have several versions of DOS on 5.25 360K drive but most of my machines are inaccessible at the moment. I should be able to make copies in a month or three. . .

Good luck!

Erik

*whimper*
 
Super-Slasher said:
That would probably be the easiest thing to do, but I have absolutely no idea how to use IBM BASIC to transfer the files fromy floppy to the HD's. I've given up on the IBM BASIC, which is why I really want MS-DOS on it.

You won't be able to get anything to either a floppy or the hard drive from ROM BASIC. It's just not supported.

In order to boot the machine you have to figure out what is preventing it from booting. Either your drives are broken or they aren't cabled right or, maybe, your controller is busted.

When I have similar problems I reduce the problem set and try to rebuild the system peice by peice. Start by removing all but your video card and then boot the system. If you get no errors add in your floppy controller (just the controller) and boot again. If you get no errors add the drive back in (cable it to the controller) and so on.

You should be able to boot a 5.25" 360K disk on an AT. If you can't then something is wrong with the machine, not the software.

Good luck!

Erik
 
"Super-Slasher" wrote in message:

>> I'm not sure exactly how your systems are set
>> up, but I'll assume that you have a box that will
>> boot the 3.5" disks that has a 5.25" drive on it.

>> If so, boot DOS on your machine and format a
>> 5.25 using the /s option. This will make the 5.25"
>> a bootable DOS disk.

>> Then copy over at least FORMAT.COM and
>> FDISK.EXE. You can then boot your AT with
>> that disk then FDISK (to define the disk as a
>> DOS drive) and then format it (using /s again).

>> The rest of the DOS files can be moved over
>> piecemeal.

> Tried and done, but the ol' IBM won't seem to
> boot from any 5.25" boot disk I make.

You could perhaps trying installing DOS Plus 1.2.
The 5.25" original floppys are available here:
http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Cpm/dosplus.html
This is a later version of CP/M-86 which allows
the reading of the DOS format, so it maybe
possible to transfer DOS over.

But of course DOS Plus could be used instead of
MS-DOS! (don't think it supports EXEs though).

Cheers.
 
I have MS-DOS 2.11 on 360k 5.25" somewhere... i dont suppose i could make you a disk image of them?

I have to hook my 5.25" drive to my WinXP box before i can rip said image from the disks, too, which seems to be not very easily done :?
 
Sorry for the lack of response, I sometimes tend not to follow u[p my messages right away.

As for the DOS problem, I just install the OS on one of my other older computers and shuffle all the files through my pile of 360KB disks to my IBM's. A bit time consuming, but it does the trick.

Thanks anyways.
 
Funny, i just got a 5170 and when reading this forum, I seem to have exactly all the questions you posted!

I would have two 360k diskette images from IBM DOS 3.30, if you want it, sent me a mail.
They can be restored to disk with a program named Winimage
 
Back
Top