Help gettig pure dos installed

[Hack]

I am currently running TurboCNC under on a Win 95 box and want to get rid of that and install pure DOS. Went to bootdisk.com and downloaded a copy of dos 6.22 extracted it onto a floppy and headed for the shop to start intalling. Slipped the floppy into the drive, booted it up - worked good - got it to the a:/ prompt. Was going to use the disc to format the harddrive so I typed format c: and was given an invalid drive error.

Can anyone tell me why? C has always been the label for the hard drive on this computer.

Thank you

Dan

[anoel]

Because DOS 6.2 and lower cannot read FAT32 formatted Hard Drives.

I'd recommend leaving the system as is. When you boot win95 into dos you are running DOS 7. Or of course You can always create your own boot
But if you insist on using the DOS that you imaged to floppy then you need to use the FDISK utiliy to repartition the had disk with FAT.

[Brokengears]

If your trying to clear the system completely you can use an application called delpart.exe, its a utility similar to FDISK, but more effective, kind of like a low level format, when i an changing systems around I delpart the hard drive, FDSIK the hard drive and set up my partitions, I usually split the drive in half, this allows me to run the applications on one partition and save my code to another partition, I have not used win 95 in quite some time, but if I remember correctly windows 95 runs as a shell in dos anyways, you could always leave win95 on there and just edit your autoexec.batch files to not load windows but just drop you into a command prompt.
you can edit the autoexec.bat, remove the "win" command from the last line in the autoexec and replace it with c:\cncappyouwanttorun/path.executable doing this will allow you to boot directly to the program you want, be sure to edit the actual path to the correct path for your allpication, now if you ever need to run windows you would only need to go back to the dos prompt and type win that will load win95 if you ever need it.

[Al_The_Man]

There was a link here for stand alone DOS 7.1 it will read fat32 and long file names, it even has its own DOS flash screen. I will try and find it, Paul listed it some time ago.
Al.

[Al_The_Man]

I think this is still a good link for it.
http://www.cn-dos.net/msdos71/
Al.

[ger21]

The bootdisk.com DOS can't be installed to your hard drive. You need a set of the installation disks. You might want to try FreeDos.

http://www.fdos.org/ripcord/beta9sr1/

To get rid of Win95, shut down and use the reboot to MS-DOS option.
Warning!! This will remove EVERYTHING from your hard drive.
Type Format C:

[cnc_ken]

DOS only recognizes a 2gb hard drive. If you had win95 setup and the hard drive was greater than 2gb it was using a FAT32 file system that DOS won't recognize. Load your DOS floppy and at a: prompt type fdisk. You'll have to choose the ' Delete Non-DOS partition. Then create a partition of maximum size. If DOS disk still dosen't recognize the hard drive. Boot with a WIN95 startup disk and use fdisk to delete your Primary partition. Then re-do the previous step I just described. Good Luck!

[Al_The_Man]

Originally Posted by cnc_ken DOS only recognizes a 2gb hard drive.

This is a copy of the list of features now on the DOS 7.1 stand-alone.

* FAT32 and FAT32X drives support (*very* important nowadays)
* Extended FAT16 (a.k.a. FAT16X, type 0E, usually being the primary partition) drives support
* Large hard disk and LBA ExtendedX (Int 13x) partition (type 0F) support (*very* important nowadays)
* Long File Names (LFN) support
* Full Y2K (Year 2000) compliant and supports 4-digit years (e.g. DIR /4)
* Large memory (>64MB) and XXMS 3.0 support
* Euro sign support (Code Page 850, Right Alt+5)
* The protection that keeps the stability of DOS
* Efficient use of UMB memory (The DOS kernel and COMMAND.COM are loaded high automatically)
* Extended commands in CONFIG.SYS to use UMB memory, such as FILESHIGH, BUFFERSHIGH
* Environments variables can be used in the DOS command line directly, e.g. ECHO %PATH%
* The maximum length for path variable is expanded
* Some new commands added, such as ACCDATE, LOGO(in CONFIG.SYS)
* Volume LOCK/UNLOCK feature added to protect data and LFN on the (hard) disks
* EDIT can be used to edit both text and binary files and multiple files
* REN can rename a directory as well as files
* The locations of DOS system files (especially IO.SYS) are much more flexible
* Dual-boot with older versions of MS-DOS (e.g. DOS 6.x) feature added
* Animated startup logo support by using a custom LOGO.SYS file
* You can decide whether to execute a command using Enter/ESC key now while using the step-by-step feature
* Support for loading Win9x GUI (including all versions from Win95/95A to Win98SE GUI) on top added
* Many undocumented but useful options and switches added, such as COMMAND /Z
* Updated and newer versions of DOS commands and tools included, such as MORE, MSCDEX, MSD
* Also alot of utilities Norton etc and many more...

Al.

[mdreitzusa]

i use turbocnc from a bootable floppy in my win98 machine.it works fine for my cnc. maybe it would work for you.

[PEU]

Or you can create a boot CD to boot DOS, so you dont depend on the unrealiable floppy disks, and the good thing is that you can fill the whole cd with utils

I use the boot image included in NeroCD that reads any FAT and also NTFS.

Flashdrives are also a good alternative if your PC allows booting from them.


Pablo

[mk2lehe]

Today I installed FreeDos on my laptop with XP, just for TurboCNC. This is how I did it, but be aware: You might end up with a system that won't boot if you mess things up.

1. Download and create a full "Ultimate Boot CD". Google it. It is truly a piece of art.
2. Resize the NTFS partition (or whatever you have), make it a little smaller. I shrank it 50 MB.
3. Create a FAT partition on the empty space. Format it.
4. Install GAG dual boot utility, from Ultimate boot cd.
5. Install FreeDos.
6. Install TurboCNC.


Henrik

[Stevie]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Man I think this is still a good link for it. http://www.cn-dos.net/msdos71/ Al.

IT SURE IS Al

THANKS!!
I already installed it on 2 HHD