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How can I install DOS without a floppy drive?

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  How can I install DOS without a floppy drive? Kulin Remailer <remailer@reece.net.au> - 2011-02-01 16:32 +0000
    Re: How can I install DOS without a floppy drive? ken.ledger48@gmail.com - 2014-10-21 07:57 -0700
      Re: How can I install DOS without a floppy drive? "Benjamin David Lunt" <zfysz@fysnet.net> - 2014-10-21 10:35 -0700
      Re: How can I install DOS without a floppy drive? Wildman <best_lay@yahoo.com> - 2014-10-21 14:20 -0500
      Re: How can I install DOS without a floppy drive? "R.Wieser" <address@not.available> - 2014-10-21 21:56 +0200
        Re: How can I install DOS without a floppy drive? Wildman <best_lay@yahoo.com> - 2014-10-21 21:24 -0500
          Re: How can I install DOS without a floppy drive? adsources369@gmail.com - 2017-09-09 05:23 -0700
            Re: How can I install DOS without a floppy drive? Trifle Menot <triflemenot@protocol.invalid> - 2017-09-09 13:52 +0000

#1040 — How can I install DOS without a floppy drive?

Is there any way to install DOS on a modern PC or laptop with no floppy
drive? I can burn CDs if necessary but I can't figure out if it's possible
to get 5 installation disks on one CD to be recognized during an install or
if a CD install for DOS is even possible. Any suggestions?

If the PC supports PXE boot does anybody know if you can install DOS over
PXE or how hard it is to setup a PXE server? What are my options for doing
this I guess is my question. 

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#1572

On Tuesday, 1 February 2011 16:32:07 UTC, Kulin Remailer  wrote:
> Is there any way to install DOS on a modern PC or laptop with no floppy
> drive? I can burn CDs if necessary but I can't figure out if it's possible
> to get 5 installation disks on one CD to be recognized during an install or
> if a CD install for DOS is even possible. Any suggestions?
> 
> If the PC supports PXE boot does anybody know if you can install DOS over
> PXE or how hard it is to setup a PXE server? What are my options for doing
> this I guess is my question.


Here is my experiance on this as i am trying to do it myself.

There is a file on the first diskette called "setup.ini", i have edited this to take out the references to the diskettes as this is where it tells you to insert disk 2 ect. 

Crating the bootable cd on nero is easy you just need to get the dos boot disc image (bootdisc.com). this puts about 18 files on the cd, inset it into the pc you want to install dos onto boot up and type sys c:\ that will transfer the boot files to the hard drive and will boot up from the hard drive then.

That bit is easy........the hard bit it getting the rest of the install files on to the hard drive. I have tried copying all the dos files to the cd first telling nero not to close the disk, i then made the cd bootable as described above. Trouble is when you boot from the cd not all the files are shown on the pc you installing dos onto. You really need a cd driver installed to allow access to the cd after booting, it's a catch 22 situation you can get the cd driver onto the pc as you need dos there to accept it.

I will try what somebody suggested earlier in this post and make a directory this may be visable after booting

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#1573

<ken.ledger48@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:b6cbd074-71df-4df0-8f2a-ff97b0e49e59@googlegroups.com...
On Tuesday, 1 February 2011 16:32:07 UTC, Kulin Remailer  wrote:
>> Is there any way to install DOS on a modern PC or laptop with no floppy
>> drive? I can burn CDs if necessary but I can't figure out if it's 
>> possible
>> to get 5 installation disks on one CD to be recognized during an install 
>> or
>> if a CD install for DOS is even possible. Any suggestions?
>>
>> If the PC supports PXE boot does anybody know if you can install DOS over
>> PXE or how hard it is to setup a PXE server? What are my options for 
>> doing
>> this I guess is my question.
>
>
>Here is my experiance on this as i am trying to do it myself.
>
>There is a file on the first diskette called "setup.ini", i have
>edited this to take out the references to the diskettes as this
>is where it tells you to insert disk 2 ect.
>
>Crating the bootable cd on nero is easy you just need to get the
>dos boot disc image (bootdisc.com). this puts about 18 files on
>the cd, inset it into the pc you want to install dos onto boot up
>and type sys c:\ that will transfer the boot files to the hard drive
>and will boot up from the hard drive then.
>
>That bit is easy........the hard bit it getting the rest of the
>install files on to the hard drive. I have tried copying all the
>dos files to the cd first telling nero not to close the disk, i
>then made the cd bootable as described above. Trouble is when you
>boot from the cd not all the files are shown on the pc you installing
>dos onto. You really need a cd driver installed to allow access to the
>cd after booting, it's a catch 22 situation you can get the cd driver
>onto the pc as you need dos there to accept it.
>
>I will try what somebody suggested earlier in this post and make a
>directory this may be visable after booting

Hi guys,

I usually visit this group but I don't think I have posted anything
in some time.

Anyway, the thought that came to my mind would be to use an emulator
such as Bochs (http://bochs.sourceforge.net/).

You say you can burn CD's, so this tells me you have another PC
with some sort of OS installed.

Since DOS can only see so many megs of disk space and a normal CD
will only hold around 700meg, I would create a virtual disk of
about 700meg on my working PC.  Install Bochs, and use its floppy
emulation to install DOS onto the virtual disk using all of the
floppies, one at a time.

Once you have DOS installed as you wish, then burn that image to
the CD, along with a utility that will write the image from the
CD to the physical sectors of the hard drive.

Once you have done this, you are done.

This does require that you have Bochs (or another emulator) installed,
a file image of each floppy, (disk0.img, disk1.img, disk2.img, ...),
a 700meg virtual disk image (hdd.img), a bootable CDROM with FreeDOS
or other OS, and a utility to read the 700Meg image from the CD and
write it to the hard drive, a sector at a time.  (Bochs will read
directly from your floppy drive as the emulated floppy drive, so no
need for images, as long as you have a Win9x/NT family of Windows
installed.)

Speaking of FreeDOS, if you are not set on one brand of DOS,
FreeDOS has a bootable CD image that will install itself directly
to the hard drive.  FreeDOS is very similar to (MS)DOS with little
or no difference noticed by the applications executed upon it.

http://www.freedos.org/

Anyway, just my two bits, cents, whatever.  Hope this helps.

Ben

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Forever Young Software
http://www.fysnet.net/index.htm
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To reply by email, please remove the zzzzzz's

Batteries not included, some Assembly required. 

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#1574

> On Tuesday, 1 February 2011 16:32:07 UTC, Kulin Remailer  wrote:
> > Is there any way to install DOS on a modern PC or laptop with no
> > floppy drive? I can burn CDs if necessary but I can't figure out if
> > it's possible to get 5 installation disks on one CD to be
> > recognized during an install or if a CD install for DOS is even
> > possible. Any suggestions?
> > 
> > If the PC supports PXE boot does anybody know if you can install
> > DOS over PXE or how hard it is to setup a PXE server? What are my
> > options for doing this I guess is my question.

I did it with MS-Dos 6.22 but I don't know if it will work with
the dos you want to use.  With 5 disks maybe PC-Dos 7.  So I do
not know if this will work.  Anyway, here is what I did...

First I created a bootable floppy image that loads my CD-Rom
driver, himem, emm386 and smartdrv.  They all must be loaded
or this will not work at all.  Next, I created a bootable CD
using that floppy image and I copied all the dos files to a
directory on the CD.

Boot with the CD.  Change to the CD-Rom drive.  Change to the
directory where the dos files are located and run setup.  The
installation will be as though it was installed from floppies.

Can't help with the PXE question.

-- 
<Wildman> GNU/Linux user #557453
The cow died so I don't need your bull!

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#1575

Ken,

As the post you're replying to seems to be over three-and-a-half *years* old
I don't think Kulin is still waiting for an answer ...

> I have tried copying all the dos files to the cd first telling nero not to
> close the disk.

Modern CD-rom drives can probably handle those non-closed CDs, but do not
bet on it.   Any reason why you're not closing the CD ?

> Trouble is when you boot from the cd not all the files are shown on
> the pc you installing dos onto.

Apart from the possibility that that is the result from not having the CD
closed, it could also be that you've choosen the wrong type of filesystem
name storage.  The one you need to use is the ISO-9660 file-system naming
convention (the strictest one, DOS 8.3 filename compatible).

> I will try what somebody suggested earlier in this post and make
> a directory this may be visable after booting

Those old suggestions will probably not available to anyone reading
newsgroups, as on them messages older than a few weeks (sometimes even days)
get removed.   Only Google is known to hold on to them *much* longer
(indefinatily ?).  Nice for look-up purposes, but why the heck does it
allow, without as much as a warning, to reply to posts this old. :-\

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message:
<ken.ledger48@gmail.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
b6cbd074-71df-4df0-8f2a-ff97b0e49e59@googlegroups.com...
On Tuesday, 1 February 2011 16:32:07 UTC, Kulin Remailer  wrote:
> Is there any way to install DOS on a modern PC or laptop with no floppy
> drive? I can burn CDs if necessary but I can't figure out if it's possible
> to get 5 installation disks on one CD to be recognized during an install
or
> if a CD install for DOS is even possible. Any suggestions?
>
> If the PC supports PXE boot does anybody know if you can install DOS over
> PXE or how hard it is to setup a PXE server? What are my options for doing
> this I guess is my question.


Here is my experiance on this as i am trying to do it myself.

There is a file on the first diskette called "setup.ini", i have edited this
to take out the references to the diskettes as this is where it tells you to
insert disk 2 ect.

Crating the bootable cd on nero is easy you just need to get the dos boot
disc image (bootdisc.com). this puts about 18 files on the cd, inset it into
the pc you want to install dos onto boot up and type sys c:\ that will
transfer the boot files to the hard drive and will boot up from the hard
drive then.

That bit is easy........the hard bit it getting the rest of the install
files on to the hard drive. I have tried copying all the dos files to the cd
first telling nero not to close the disk, i then made the cd bootable as
described above. Trouble is when you boot from the cd not all the files are
shown on the pc you installing dos onto. You really need a cd driver
installed to allow access to the cd after booting, it's a catch 22 situation
you can get the cd driver onto the pc as you need dos there to accept it.

I will try what somebody suggested earlier in this post and make a directory
this may be visable after booting

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#1576

On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 21:56:22 +0200
"R.Wieser" <address@not.available> wrote:

> Ken,
> 
> As the post you're replying to seems to be over three-and-a-half
> *years* old I don't think Kulin is still waiting for an answer ...

I'm afraid I didn't notice the posting date either.
<bowing head in shame>

-- 
<Wildman> GNU/Linux user #557453
The cow died so I don't need your bull!

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#2757

On Wednesday, October 22, 2014 at 4:24:01 AM UTC+2, Wildman wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 21:56:22 +0200
> "R.Wieser" <address@not.available> wrote:
> 
> > Ken,
> > 
> > As the post you're replying to seems to be over three-and-a-half
> > *years* old I don't think Kulin is still waiting for an answer ...
> 
> I'm afraid I didn't notice the posting date either.
> <bowing head in shame>
> 
> -- 
> <Wildman> GNU/Linux user #557453
> The cow died so I don't need your bull!

Yeah, and then there`s me here in 2017 with software that is TOTALLY necessary for my one man band that works only on older OS - Millennium, so these "ancient" posts are a Godsend!! Was given an ancient 486 laptop that has no floppy drive AND my PC`s floppy just packed up. HD crashed, so need to set up another so I can go out and work. Thanks for all the advice, gonna give it a go! [My site: http://bestwaytolearnguitar.xyz/ ]

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#2758

On Sat, 9 Sep 2017 05:23:10 -0700 (PDT), adsources369@gmail.com wrote:

>> > As the post you're replying to seems to be over three-and-a-half
>> > *years* old I don't think Kulin is still waiting for an answer ...

>Yeah, and then there`s me here in 2017 with software that is TOTALLY
>necessary for my one man band that works only on older OS - Millennium,
>so these "ancient" posts are a Godsend!!

Yeah I hate web groups that lock threads due to age. What difference
does 30 years make? If you've been traveling at 99.9999% the speed of
light, it's still 1987.

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