DOS Menu DOS INSTALLATIONFull View

      Most Microsoft Operating Systems are designed to install on a blank hard drive. Unless it is an Upgrade, it will most likely abort if it finds an operating system already installed. This is most likely to prevent you from mixing incompatible versions of DOS.

NOTE: If you have and operating system that you are going to erase, you should test the install disks with SCANDISK, before you proceed, to make sure the disks are usable.

To install the DOS:
(1) Put MSDOS Setup Disk 1 into the boot Floppy drive, (normally drive A).
(2) Turn on or reboot the computer.
(3) A menu should appear for installing the program.
(4) Select C to begin the installation.
(5) Remove the floppy disk from the drive.
(6) Reboot the computer.

 

Alternative Method:
      If you are trying to make the hard drive "bootable", you can use the SYS command to accomplish that. If you have no DOS command files on the hard drive, but the drive is already bootable, you can manually EXPAND them into the DOS directory. To do this you must know what the file name is supposed to be. DOS 5.0 has a file named PACKING.LST. This file has the filenames as they are on each of the installation Setup Disks. Files with an underline at the end are compressed. At the end of the list are the names they are to be when uncompressed.

      On DOS 6.x the file also list the files, but the before and after names are side by side. In both cases you must use the EXPAND.EXE, located on Disk 1, to uncompress them. The file must have the compressed name and the installed name in the syntax. To install HIMEM.SYS into the C:\DOS\ directory from A: drive, from the A:\> prompt type:

expand a:\himem.sy_ c:\dos\himem.sys

If you are familiar with Batch files, you could make a Batch file to install these files for you. Otherwise, you have a lot of typing ahead of you.

 

Transferring The System Files

To copy the boot system files to a disk and make it bootable you need the SYS.COM file in path, in the current directory or you must type the full path. The file must be the same version as the operating system the computer booted from. The easiest way to verify this is compare the filedate of the SYS.COM and the operating system files such as the IO.SYS or COMMAND.COM files.

If you booted from a floppy disk in drive A and want to transfer files to the hard drive C, you would type:

sys a: c:
The a: is optional if you are on the drive where the source files are located.

Note: In order to be bootable, the drive must also be a "Primary DOS Partition" and that partition must be set as "Active".


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Updated January 14, 2001
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