Error installing MS-DOS 5.0

[n8in99]

I am trying to install DOS 5.0 on an old 80 MB hard drive. I get through the first portion of the install, but I get 11% complete and I get an error:

"An error occurred while reading or writing to drive C:"

The file that it is trying to write is msdos.sys.

Anyone have any ideas, because I'm stumped.

 

[Mitzi]

DOS 5.0 - you serious???

Could be the MS-DOS 5.0 floppies are faulty (very likely)

Could be that the 80Mb HDD is faulty (very likely).

Put the floppies disks in a more recent machine and do a full surface scandisk on them. Also try plugging the 80Mb hard drive into another machine and do a full surface scandisk on that.

 

[Escalade]

I'll second that bad floppy disk recommendation; I?ve had several old floppies go bad on me.

Unless you specifically need DOS 5.0, you can download the full version 6.22 from Microsoft?s ftp site...

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/peropsys/msdos/public/

I think these were the result of a lawsuit over Double-Space being included in the original release.

 

[n8in99]

Yes I'm serious. It's an old portable device from 1993 for a customer. I ran a complete scan on the floppy and it came back clean. I tried it again and the same error. I have not hooked the hard drive in another computer yet. I may do that next. Any other ideas.

 

[n8in99]

I don't think that I need specifically 5.0, so I'll try the 6.22 download. If that fails, then it must be the hard drive.

 

[corkyg]

I don't think early MS DOS versions can deal with such a large HDD. Even an old 80 Megger is beyond what 5.0 could deal with. I believe the max was 35, 737.5, or thereabouts. I would at least try 6.22.

 

[BlackOmen]

<< I don't think early MS DOS versions can deal with such a large HDD. Even an old 80 Megger is beyond what 5.0 could deal with. I believe the max was 35, 737.5, or thereabouts. I would at least try 6.22. >>

I'm pretty sure the limit was 512MB. It's definitely not less than 100mb because I ran DOS 5 on a 100megger for 5 years.

Also, the address given by Escalade only contains the MS-DOS stepup from 6.x to 6.22, unless I missed something.

 

[n8in99]

I agree. It is only a step up program. Anyone know of a free DOS 5.0 or higher download. I'm still stuck at square one.

 

[kd7fhd]

Since the message is "An error occurred while reading or writing to drive C:"

you had better run scandisk or norton on that hard drive. It's probably got a few bad sectors.

 

[Dan]

I agree. It sounds like the hdd is the culprit.

 

[manly]

<< I'll second that bad floppy disk recommendation; I?ve had several old floppies go bad on me.

Unless you specifically need DOS 5.0, you can download the full version 6.22 from Microsoft?s ftp site...

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/peropsys/msdos/public/

I think these were the result of a lawsuit over Double-Space being included in the original release. >>



Yes, Mickeysoft stole technology from Stacker.

As far as gratis DOS, try http://www.drdos.org/.