6.22 format error

[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.