Loading Dos

[Bazzao]

Hi,

Just joined.

I have some old propriety CDs for dos, however none are bootable.

I can create the machine, but it needs to format itself and therefore needs a bootable CD.

I have looked at videos on YouTube, but all seem to skip where they get their operating system installation from.

Thanks

Bazza

[mpack]

You are expected to legally obtain the install disks for any copyrighted OS you want to install. DOS is copyrighted, so if you are looking for info on where to find illegal copies then I'm afraid here is not the place.

Btw, DOS predates bootable CDs. It was installed from 5 or so floppies, the first of which was bootable. In fact earlier versions of DOS didn't have an installer at all: you booted from the provided bootable floppy, then manually run the fdisk and format tools to prepare the hard disk, then you copy the DOS executable tools across and set up memory and CD drivers in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT.

Returning to the subject: if you don't have a friend or parent with old DOS floppies in a drawer, then you might look on eBay. Or you can try installing FreeDOS.

A final option is to install DOSBox, which is a shell that lets you run DOS (and 16bit software in general) on a modern Windows host, even a 64bit one. Ironically however you probably need to be familiar with DOS in order to set this up right, and not all programs will run.

[Bazzao]

Thanks for the tips.

I'm just getting started on VM.

Bazza.