6.22 format error

[Noidly1]

Does anyone know why I am getting this message?
I formatted with /B switch first to allocate room for the system files first then tried 3 times with /S to save system files to disk and keep getting this message.
What is going on here???

[Salmon Trout]

How big is the partition size? Max partition size, 2 GB. Assuming the partition is not too big, then maybe the disk was already formatted and unformat information was saved at that time, leaving no room for a repeat.

Where it says "Proceed with format (Y/N)?", what happens if you answer "Y" to the question?

Try format c: /S /U

/U means "unconditional" which means you cannot later do an "unformat", which is rarely needed.

[Noidly1]

2047 mb.

There is no Un-format on the setup disk, I never heard of it and I didn't know you could.
Besides that, why would you, doesn't formatting a disk over-write anyway!?!

If Un-formatting a disk is possible, how do you do it, what does it do that a zero writer doesn't do?

I haven't tried to proceed yet because I don't want to mess up the hd.

I have tried to /S without /B first and still get the same message.

This is a brand new hd and I used the setup disk to create and format c: and install the os.
When I went to boot the machine up, it failed to load the os.
So, this is where/ how I ended up here. Can't get system files on hd to boot os.
Should I just copy the IO.sys and MSDOS.sys files from a: to c: or will that not work?

Thanks.

[Salmon Trout]

Unformat information is saved if you do FORMAT /S. It seems like you can't anyhow, so just do FORMAT /S

Anyhow, first try SYS C:

You say 'setup disk'. You only have one? MS-DOS install set is 3 disks.

[Noidly1]

I have all 4 floppy images from a single file I downloaded.
Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Plus Enhanced Tools (3.5).7z which has,
Disk 1 .img
Disk 2 .img
Disk 3 .img
Supplement disk .img

my guess by what you say "Anyhow, first try SYS C: " means it puts the system files on c: for you, idk.

[Salmon Trout]

SYS is used to copy the system files from one drive to another drive, allowing that drive to be bootable.

When running sys, the below files will be copied.

command.com
io.sys
msdos.sys
drvspace.bin

[Lisa_maree]

Hi Noidly1

If this is a new disk as you say and you don't want anything on the disk ?

Then i would first run fdisk
Delete the partition if there is one on the drive
Create a new Fat16  partition. Dos 6.22 doesn't support Fat32.
Then install DOS from the 3 floppies

I think the error is coming from the Disk being partitioned in Fat 32 format.
 

[patio]

Wonders where DOS is from...

[Geek-9pm]

Noidly1,
Most new personal computers will not let you boot  DOS 6.22 on a hard drive.
Can you provides information about how old that computer is?
Did it once have MS-DOS on it?

[Noidly1]

Thanks Salmon, I'll give that a try.

Lisa, I formatted it in FAT 16.

Geek, this is an older PC I built.
ASUS A8N32-SLI
Fastest AMD Dual core 939 socket available (I don't recall the model)
4- Patriot PEP1G3200LL sticks
2- GeForce 8800 Ultra cards
3- 250 gig IDE hd's
1 dvd-rw drive

This is the first time I have run across this problem and am confused as to why this is happening.

I have been messing with this thing over the years trying to build a gaming machine with the ability to multi os for tinkering. Also, I like win 95's defrag over the others.

I learned a while back that SLI does not work in 32bit and needed XP64, which I just found a copy of a couple of months ago.

If your wondering why I am still messing with XP, I am old school and do not like the new "Tablet" style os's. If you could look at it this way, I prefer KDE over Gnome style os's... Win 8 and 10 suck *censored*!!!

As for the multi os part, I want to have DOS 6.22, Win3.11, 95, 98SE, XP, XP64 and maybe Win7 along with a few Linux distros.

BTW, my experience with computers is building them, setting them up and running them for about 25 years now, not programming them. I don't know anything about "coding" and don't have the patience or time to tap on a key-board for hours on end. j/s...

Thanks.

[Geek-9pm]

I also use Windows XP because I can can see better on some web sites if I am running XP and not Windows 10. Hard to understand why, but XP has many more options for ease of use.

A while back a relative gave me a free Gateway computer with Windows 10on it. So I thought I could just put XP on it and do the dual boot thing. I hare being doing dual boot for years, maybe 17 years or more. I don't remember.

Anyway, I found the Gateway BIOS stops me from using XP. Because XP wants MBR and yu have to fiddle with the BIOS to allow MBR on the boot drive.

The point is that at last  I found it in the BIOS stuff and turned off the security things that got in the way. But I had to re format the disk and install everything.
This kind of stuff was documented many years ago. About 2007 maybe.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-and-gpt-faq

Eventually, data density for disks became too large for the MBR scheme to account for all the available data locations. Also, the layout, or format, of the MBR was designed for early computers and not flexible enough to accommodate newer disk configurations. A new partitioning method was needed so the GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme was created.

But older operating systems can not boot directly with the GPT. At least I have never heard of anyone doing it. To the best of my knowledge yu have to disable it in BIOS and format a hard drive for MBR. The yu can put an older OS on it and make it potable.

The other method is to run an older OS inside of virtual box in Windows 7.
This might be of interest:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use-virtualbox/

VirtualBox is a piece of software published by Oracle. It allows you to emulate an operating system on your own PC and use it like it’s running on real hardware. You’ll discover tons of uses for virtual machines.

Do yu ever use Linux? Linux takes less drive space and can also run DOS in a virtual thing.
https://www.linux.com/learn/why-when-and-how-use-virtual-machine

[BC_Programmer]

The error in the OP occurs for the reasons it stated. It was unable to create a format recovery file.

Either the partition is not yet formatted or is not currently formatted to FAT16.

Unformat information is saved so that the disk can be unformatted with the UNFORMAT external command, but that only applies if the original file system is FAT16, and possibly in specific other scenarios involving the current drive contents. If it is not you receive this error and prompt- You have not indicated (as far as I can see) what happens if you answer the prompt in the affirmative or use the /U switch that Salmon Trout suggested; considering from what you've stated the drive doesn't contain anything you would want I don't see a reason to be concerned that unformat information is not being saved.

[Noidly1]

I here ya Geek.
The retail mobo is old school and has the regular cmos and bios and not the new fangled setup.
I had xp on it before on another hd and it worked without a hitch till the hd took a dump on me.

What I like about it is that it has a hd boot choice you can prompt with the F8 key at boot.
Also; I have used Ranish's boot manager and it works great.
Just setup each hd with it and use F8 at boot, select the drive, then select the partition and away you go.

If memory serves me right, I remember hearing a kid some years ago had, i think it was, 51 (Fifty One) OSes on one computer. I am only looking at a dozen...

BTW, I have several versions of Ranish where one of them lets you have more than 4 partitions but is kind of flaky and makes other partition software freak out so I don't use it.

I don't know anything about a GUID Partition Table (GPT), never used it.

I have run several Linux distro's and found Debian my fav so far. in kde of coarse...

BC,
I used the DOS6.22 setup disk to fdisk the drive and format it, correct partition size and format.
I haven't tried affirming it yet but will give it a try.
Like I said B4, I don't see an un-format on the setup disk and never had B4 and don't know why anyone would when you can just re-format it anyway. j/s...


If affirming it doesn't work, I'll go ahead and use the SYS c: and give it a whirl.

[Geek-9pm]

OK, forget the GUID stuff.Old PCs don't have it.
If you think your MS-DOS disks are corrupt, toucan download from another source. Many sites have MS-DOS 6.22 for download.
The fdisk command will let you know that you can only have 2 GB for the boot partition.

I have a 500 GBdrive with MBR. I have Windows 10 do the boot up and I can select Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 10.
Also, I have a very small partition for DOS 6.22, but can not boot it. Instead I boot a CD with MS-DOS on it. That small partition has to be the first and it has to be primary.
On my old Dell 755 I hit the F12 at start up and it lets me select the CD drive. Of course, when in DOS I can not see the rest of the drive. And I don't want to.

[BC_Programmer]

Like I said B4, I don't see an un-format on the setup disk and never had B4 and don't know why anyone would when you can just re-format it anyway. j/s...

UNFORMAT is not on the setup disk. It is on disk 2.

The purpose of UNFORMAT is to undo a format operation that was done by accident to a drive that contains data.

[Lisa_maree]

It will be interesting if you are able to install and run windows versions before XP on the motherboard and CPU. Seem to remember windows had an issue with the front side bus speed being higher than 66 mhz,AMD brought out a patch which you installed after windows was installed using a slower fsb.
You can't reduce the fsb lower enough on your motherboard to install the patch.
There is no driver support for windows before XP either.
I feel this is going to be the start of many challenges. Good Luck

[Noidly1]

Strange...
I went ahead and did an un-con format straight out.
I reinstalled 6.22 and it wouldn't boot so I used sys c: and it wouldn't boot again.

I dir c: and only
command.com
wina20.386
config.sys
autoexec.bat
files show up so I tried to copy the others from a: to c: and they are already there, hidden.

autoexec.bat has
c:\dos\smartrdrv.exe /x
@echo off
prompt $p$g
path c:\dos
set temp=c:\dos

config.sys has
device c:\dos\setver.exe
device c:\dos\highmem.sys
dos=high
files=30

scratching my head.........

If the cd and the floppy boot, do you think something might be going on with the mbr or is it something else???
BTW, I have Debian on another hd and it boots just fine how ever it does have grub on it.
Now that i think about it, well the problems were before I installed Debian on the other drive.
I was careful to disable each drive via bios before I install each of the OSes.
However, one thing I did notice was that while I had the first primary drive disabled, when I installed Debian on the second slave, it showed the first drive, as the third and it's drive as first.
how in the *censored* it saw that drive is beyond me... That said, do you think that when Debian was installing and installed grub, which I believe was on it's drive, could it have done something to the "hidden" first drive?

Right now, when I installed 6.22, I have the third drive hidden. something is up..........

[Noidly1]

BC, I didn't know it was there, my bad... Thanks for the info!

Thanks for the heads-up Lisa. it seems I have my hands full. LOL

[Noidly1]

Updated info>

ASUS A8N32-SLI
[AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ 2.4 GHz 939 socket]
[cpu speed=2400mhz, count=2]
[DRAM clocking = 400mhz]
[bios mem clock speed=200mhz]
[pcie frequency=100]

4- Patriot PEP1G3200LL sticks
2- GeForce 8800 Ultra cards
3- 250 gig IDE hd's
1 dvd-rw drive

[BC_Programmer]

Is the partition on which MS-DOS is installed marked as Active in FDISK?

[Noidly1]

Is the partition on which MS-DOS is installed marked as Active in FDISK?

Yes.

[Geek-9pm]

Bear in mind that MS-DOS was made for computer hardware older than what you are now using. The major differences are were:

• CPU speed .
• The old ATA hard drive.
• Small drive size.
• BIOS that does not use LBA.

I dimly recall old HDD that had a jumper needed for old OS. 

Forgot to mention. A Bootable CD does NOT use the same  code in the pre-loader as in the MS-DOS diskette.  My bootable CD I use to bring-up MS-DOS has pre-loader that came from a later OS. I think it was Windows ME.

[patio]

Wonders where DOS is from...

Which is why i asked this...

[Salmon Trout]

To be noted: MS-DOS 6.22 is not "abandonware". It is a copyright product, and sites offering disk image sets are in breach of that.

[Geek-9pm]

Yes, it still is a product held with a Microsoft copyright.
Having said that, there are some sites that have trusted downloads.
I think these are trustworthy:

The Legacy PC Project - MS-DOS 6.22

DOS 6.22

Either  of the above can provide more information.

[Salmon Trout]

Geek, you're missing my point. I'm not saying the downloads might have malware or be untrustworthy. I'm saying it's illegal. It's piracy. It doesn't matter which site you download MS_DOS from, it's still copyright. The only legal way to get MS-DOS 6.22 or earlier versions* is to buy a legal licensed set of disks, for example on eBay.

*Except for the early versions Microsoft recently open-sourced.

[Geek-9pm]

Pardon me. I didnot want to say it is legalto use MS-DOS outside of the EULA of Microsft. Yes, one must buy a legal copy of MS-DOS, except for tghe earlist version thy have  made open.
The download is for the benefit for those who do not have the floppy disk drive needed toread the original disks.

[Lisa_maree]

Me Again

Why are you using the Bios disable to "disconnect" drives. To make things simple and uncomplicated why not just use 1 IDE drive leave all the other drives off the ide cables meaning disconnected. Setup DOS on the first drive and test it works, boots you know the drill. If it works ok then move onto loading the other OS's onto the same drive or one of the others.

Remember the boot drive for windows and dos needs to be the master drive and the first active partition at the very beginning of the drive.

Linux will boot from any drive/partition.

Once you have all the OS's working then look at how you are going to configure a boot manager to select which operating system boots. I used to use Paragon Boot Manager but I see it is no longer available. It was free when Windows XP was released.

On 1 250Gb harddrive you could load DOS and say 4 windows versions these OS's ran on 20 mb drives to ME running on 2 GB. So the 250 gb is heaps big enough.
But they need to be on the first correctly configured IDE drive. Meaning the jumpers set correct for master or single drive if you check on the drives label it has the jumper configuration.

Perhaps when/if you get this all setup you could use one of the other drives for keeping backups or a copy as with any multi boot setup there is a bigger chance of the boot drive deciding not to boot, just because you have say loaded linux and it over writes the none standard boot sector of the boot manager.
 
If you are not using the SATA on the motherboard turn these off in the bios.
Make sure Raid is disabled, reading the manual it is confusing if the  Raid option is just for the  sata ports or the ide can be raided so best to turn it off.

And also consider if this is the correct hardware to be doing this. I say it is not! you would be better with an older system like a P3 at under 1 GHz.

Or running the OS's in virtual machines. A quick google search for( Windows 3.1 virtual machine image ) will give you per configured windows virtual machines. This would then run all the os's under windows xp. Which your motherboard  supports beautifully.

     

[Geek-9pm]

For what it is worth...
I have two older computers with multi-boot. Both have DOS 6.22 on the first and only hard drive. Both will boot into MS-DOS. But there s a catch. I can not use a boot manager to do it. Instead, I have two three primary partitions.

I use some utility to change the active partition. Awkward, but it works.

I have:
DOS   WinXP    WinXP(1)    Win10   DATA   Tiny   Win7

First three primary, rest are logical.