Hmm...does your PC have a 1.44MB floppy drive or is it a 720k ?
For the DR Dos first floppy if it halts at loading: Sounds like the first disk has some file corruption so is not properly booting.
For the HD also sounds that way. You can download DR Dos 5.0 from WInWorld and try it to see if it boots. You will need something like Winimage to write the floppies and recommend not doing it on a Win10 computer.

Horun wrote on 2022-02-05, 01:24:

Hmm...does your PC have a 1.44MB floppy drive or is it a 720k ?
For the DR Dos first floppy if it halts at loading: Sounds like the first disk has some file corruption so is not properly booting.
For the HD also sounds that way. You can download DR Dos 5.0 from WInWorld and try it to see if it boots. You will need something like Winimage to write the floppies and recommend not doing it on a Win10 computer.

Yeah, I was making my own disks with the images from WinWorld but WinImage wasn't working so I was using Rawwritewin. I guess I should retry making these disks with a non-Win10 computer and see if that helps, because maybe something about Windows 10 isn't writing the disks correctly.

The drive is a 1.44MB Teac drive.

Does your DR DOS floppy disk boot when you have no hard disk connected (or set to "None" in BIOS)?

Disruptor wrote on 2022-02-05, 08:21:

Does your DR DOS floppy disk boot when you have no hard disk connected (or set to "None" in BIOS)?

This, disconnect the hard disk.
If it boots you have an issue with the hdd, if not probably with the floppies.

Disruptor wrote on 2022-02-05, 08:21:

Does your DR DOS floppy disk boot when you have no hard disk connected (or set to "None" in BIOS)?

Nope!

Guess I need to remake these floppies using an older OS.

My guess is that they were not imaged proper, old versions of DOS, IBM DOS, DR DOS, etc must have the IO.SYS or IBMBIO.COM starting in the first sector of the floppy followed by MSDOS.SYS or IBMDOS.COM.
Also the floppy boot sector must be written properly to point to the first file.... IIRC

add: OK tried two diff archives at Winworld and the one lableled: Digital Research DR DOS 5.0 (8-14-1990) (3.5-720k) worked.
The first disk wrote proper with Winimage 7 and booted on my Old XP computer. Had to use 720k floppy disk, attempting to write to 1.44Mb floppy disk did not boot....
Am going to try the 1.44Mb japanese version disk 1 and see if I can swap the english version files into it....
Success with creating a 1.44mb floppy Disk1 ! It booted proper ! The other 2 disks can just be extracted and written direct to 2 more floppies.
here is my 1.44mb Disk1, Good Luck !

Horun wrote on 2022-02-05, 16:41:

My guess is that they were not imaged proper, old versions of DOS, IBM DOS, DR DOS, etc must have the MSDOS.SYS or IBMBIO.COM st […]
Show full quote

My guess is that they were not imaged proper, old versions of DOS, IBM DOS, DR DOS, etc must have the MSDOS.SYS or IBMBIO.COM starting in the first sector of the floppy followed by IO.SYS or IBMDOS.COM.
Also the floppy boot sector must be written properly to point to the first file.... IIRC

add: OK tried two diff archives at Winworld and the one lableled: Digital Research DR DOS 5.0 (8-14-1990) (3.5-720k) worked.
The first disk wrote proper with Winimage 7 and booted on my Old XP computer. Had to use 720k floppy disk, attempting to write to 1.44Mb floppy disk did not boot....
Am going to try the 1.44Mb japanese version disk 1 and see if I can swap the english version files into it....
Success with creating a 1.44mb floppy Disk1 ! It booted proper ! The other 2 disks can just be extracted and written direct to 2 more floppies.
here is my 1.44mb Disk1, Good Luck !

Wow, thank you!

Horun wrote on 2022-02-05, 16:41:

My guess is that they were not imaged proper, old versions of DOS, IBM DOS, DR DOS, etc must have the MSDOS.SYS or IBMBIO.COM starting in the first sector of the floppy followed by IO.SYS or IBMDOS.COM.
Also the floppy boot sector must be written properly to point to the first file.... IIRC

just to be pedantic,
it's IO.SYS or IBMBIO.COM followed by MSDOS.SYS or IBMDOS.COM 😁

weedeewee wrote on 2022-02-05, 21:35:

just to be pedantic,
it's IO.SYS or IBMBIO.COM followed by MSDOS.SYS or IBMDOS.COM 😁

Yes you are right ! I shoulda copied it off my notes instead of relying on my poor memory 😁

So where do I get the rest of the disks you used to make the installer, Horun? When I downloaded the file it was only a single disk.

I also got this weird error trying to write the disk image you provided with WinImage in XP...

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-02-05, 22:49:

So where do I get the rest of the disks you used to make the installer, Horun? When I downloaded the file it was only a single disk.

I also got this weird error trying to write the disk image you provided with WinImage in XP...

PXL_20220205_225047018.jpg

Are you trying to write an HD image to a DD disk?

debs3759 wrote on 2022-02-05, 23:08:

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-02-05, 22:49:

So where do I get the rest of the disks you used to make the installer, Horun? When I downloaded the file it was only a single disk.

I also got this weird error trying to write the disk image you provided with WinImage in XP...

PXL_20220205_225047018.jpg

Are you trying to write an HD image to a DD disk?

Nah, turned out I just had a bad disk. Been having a lot of those lately.

I was able to make a new disk and boot it but it was expecting three disks that I don't have.

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-02-05, 23:10:

I was able to make a new disk and boot it but it was expecting three disks that I don't have.

You must have missed this part:

Horun wrote on 2022-02-05, 16:41:

...archives at Winworld and the one lableled: Digital Research DR DOS 5.0 (8-14-1990) (3.5-720k) worked.
...The other 2 disks can just be extracted and written direct to 2 more floppies.
here is my 1.44mb Disk1, Good Luck !

https://winworldpc.com/download/af24d99a-8264 … 4a-fa163e9022f0
There are only 3 disks in that set. The one I posted is the first one...

Horun wrote on 2022-02-05, 23:31:

You must have missed this part: […]
Show full quote

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-02-05, 23:10:

I was able to make a new disk and boot it but it was expecting three disks that I don't have.

You must have missed this part:

Horun wrote on 2022-02-05, 16:41:

...archives at Winworld and the one lableled: Digital Research DR DOS 5.0 (8-14-1990) (3.5-720k) worked.
...The other 2 disks can just be extracted and written direct to 2 more floppies.
here is my 1.44mb Disk1, Good Luck !

https://winworldpc.com/download/af24d99a-8264 … 4a-fa163e9022f0
There are only 3 disks in that set. The one I posted is the first one...

Oh!

But since they're 720k, I guess I would have to use a "real" floppy drive and not a USB one? The one I have at least won't play nice with 720k disk images.

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-02-06, 01:26:

Horun wrote on 2022-02-05, 23:31:

You must have missed this part: […]
Show full quote

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-02-05, 23:10:

I was able to make a new disk and boot it but it was expecting three disks that I don't have.

You must have missed this part:

Horun wrote on 2022-02-05, 16:41:

...archives at Winworld and the one lableled: Digital Research DR DOS 5.0 (8-14-1990) (3.5-720k) worked.
...The other 2 disks can just be extracted and written direct to 2 more floppies.
here is my 1.44mb Disk1, Good Luck !

https://winworldpc.com/download/af24d99a-8264 … 4a-fa163e9022f0
There are only 3 disks in that set. The one I posted is the first one...

Oh!

But since they're 720k, I guess I would have to use a "real" floppy drive and not a USB one? The one I have at least won't play nice with 720k disk images.

No just dump the contents of those two images to two 1.44Mb floppy disk and use your USB one. You can extract the files to a folder first then transfer to a 1.44Mb floppy disks if that helps....
They are not bootable and just contain files...
with WinImage you can click Image > Extract and extract direct to anywhere including a floppy disk instead of Disk > Write Disk once the image is loaded....

added: Oh forgot 7Zip can even extract the files since they are not compressed odd image types.

Horun wrote on 2022-02-06, 02:31:

No just dump the contents of those two images to two 1.44Mb floppy disk and use your USB one. You can extract the files to a fol […]
Show full quote

EvieSigma wrote on 2022-02-06, 01:26:

Horun wrote on 2022-02-05, 23:31:

You must have missed this part:

https://winworldpc.com/download/af24d99a-8264 … 4a-fa163e9022f0
There are only 3 disks in that set. The one I posted is the first one...

Oh!

But since they're 720k, I guess I would have to use a "real" floppy drive and not a USB one? The one I have at least won't play nice with 720k disk images.

No just dump the contents of those two images to two 1.44Mb floppy disk and use your USB one. You can extract the files to a folder first then transfer to a 1.44Mb floppy disks if that helps....
They are not bootable and just contain files...
with WinImage you can click Image > Extract and extract direct to anywhere including a floppy disk instead of Disk > Write Disk once the image is loaded....

added: Oh forgot 7Zip can even extract the files since they are not compressed odd image types.

Oh, okay! Didn't know you could do that!

Yeah something not mentioned much is that only the first DOS disk of any variant is the critical one. The rest of the disks are just full of files and sometimes have critical labels but not in this case from what I could see 😀
Let us know how it goes and good luck !

I guess the only annoyance left would be a check for volumelabel, since extracting the files from the image doesn't copy the volumelabel over. fyi.

For the heck of it I tried using WinImage to convert the disk images from WinWorld for DR-DOS 5.0 (Premier Innovations/KLH OEM) to 1440KB format, wrote them to disk in Windows XP using WinImage 8.1, and they worked! I successfully installed DR-DOS 5.0 and can boot off the hard drive now!

This machine does still have some issues (the most major of which is the fact that it has no CMOS battery and thus loses all its settings when powered off) but at least it has an OS now, and the old Seagate ST351 hard drive actually works!