A bootdisk contains a extremely base "install" of MS-DOS.
the three disk set contains of course the installer, which guies you through installing MS-DOS, as well as the appropriate external commands (FIND,MORE,XCOPY, etc), included programs (EDIT,QBASIC) and utilities (Doublespace/memmaker,format, diskcopy,comp,fdisk, recover, subst, join, etc...) and online help documentation.
a bootdisk generally consists of simply MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS (or IBMDOS.COM and IBMBIOS.COM, or something similar in the PC-DOS variant), command.com, and very limited set of diagnostic tools.
You can find the <full> DOS setup disks on ebay, I'm sure.
Your original problem comes from the design of Windows 3.x as well as the requirement ST mentioned- MS-DOS or PC-DOS must be installed first- Windows 3.1 setup cannot create/delete or format partitions like newer versions of windows do, it's more a windowed desktop environment, rather then an OS.
downloading a simple boot disk for MS-DOS is in and of itself not piracy, to my understanding. downloading the full disk set from somewhere would be.
I would recommend trying to find a set on ebay. if you're lucky you might even find a boxed copy that includes the manual, which can be especially helpful.
Would not the computer already have ms dos on it, I ask from ignorance?
This is actually caused by confusion between MS-DOS, and operating system that is installed to disk, and the System BIOS, which is in the system ROM. further confusion is caused by older texts on the subject, which erroneously state that "part of MS-DOS is in your ROM chip, which loads the rest of itself from disk" which is only true for a few ancient PC clones, like the Tandy, which ran their own specially modified version of DOS for no reason whatsoever. the ROM contains the BIOS, which does contain instructions to look on the disk for further code to execute, but it doesn't contain any DOS-specific code- the same MBR reading instructions are used regardless of the operating system.
This topic is confused further by the even worse assumption by many and the proliferation of the information that "DOS is as close to the system as you can get", many so-called tutorials you can find on the web, and even printed books will tell you "DOS is like talking to your computer through primeval grunts and gutteral noises" or some effective metaphor. DOS is in fact a rather good abstraction- instead of having to send, say, machine code instructions directly to the computer (which would probably wear out your 1 and 0 keys, assuming the computer gives you the luxury of translating those two keys into actual bits), you can enter commands that are parsed and performed.
This wouldn't be that bit of an issue, simply a misconception. but the misconception and the fact that it is referred to as "the lowest level" can make people uneasy, or, as in this case, cause a belief that it's some sort of "built-in" operating system.
Thank you Salmon Trout, I am now learning!
I have seen the below, what do you think of that, worth trying?
http://www.freedos.org/freedos/files/
Don't have any experience with that myself, but I don't believe (based on a quick google) that FreeDOS can run windows 3.1.
