You can download DOS images from Winworld, have used some of their images to rebuild some of my old damaged dos disk. One thing I usually do is boot off the floppy and SYS the HD after fdisk and formatting. That way is easy to see if the HD is setup properly before installing all of DOS. DOS 6 does not have a 1024 cylinder limit, older BIOS do. If you can manually enter the HD's 1057 cyls and it is less than 1Gb you do not need to change to LBA, because the BIOS does support greater than 1024in fact it should boot same way if you enter those parm's in Normal mode and then switch it to LBA mode (which will switch to Translation mode). Of course different BIOS versions may need LBA once you exceed 1024 but on Award bios I have to see that on 1Gb of less HD's. I suggest you enter the proper C-H-S in Normal mode and then switch it to LBA just in case you run into an issue.
Added: Different drive makers use different methods to claim the capacity, usually the DOS/Win capacity is a bit below the stated on the drive.

386SX wrote on 2020-06-17, 16:01:

Hi, I have a genuine floppy version of Dos 6.20 with original papers and box and I was expecting it may be so old to have proble […]
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Hi,
I have a genuine floppy version of Dos 6.20 with original papers and box and I was expecting it may be so old to have problem reading it. The first two floppies I got somehow after many times to install while the third disk seems in bad shape and at the end of the installation I've to leave some files not installed to end up the installation.
At the reboot the pc seems to stop at the "MS DOS 6.2 starting". Can this be related to the third floppy or even the first ones may have had problems? Certainly every floppy has some problems here but I was hoping maybe some software may help or I could install from the files directly on the disk itself or whatever.
The disk is a Seagate ST3660 540MB.
Also I'd like to ask a thing: I tried the installation using a more modern P4/i865PE mobo but the disk will go into a 386 machine which bios has the option to insert the disk config that is 1057 cyl, 16 heads, 63 sector, but I don't understand why it say 520MB instead of 540MB? Also what about the limitation that should be 1024 cyl of Dos? Should I configure it for LBA with a different configuration?
Thanks

386 BIOSes usually are using CHS only, unless they are more recent BIOSes for 386/486DLC hybrid mainboards.
Traditionally, the BIOS accepts CHS in this way.. Cylinders 0-1023, Heads 0-15, Sectors 1-63
- Edit: What the CMOS Setup Utility accepts has no relationship to internal limits of the BIOS (you can enter any bogus values).

So if you want to be on the safe side, clear your HDD with S0KILL and enter 1023 cylinders, 15 Heads (16 may also work) and 63 sectors and re-install DOS..
This settings will give a few megabytes less, but should be trouble free.

Alternatively, use "Large" or "ECHS" settings in BIOS, if available.
As a last resort, you can also try a Dynamic Drive Overlay (DDO), such as EZ-Drive.

Re: 512mb CF card cylinder values ?
Re: IDE to Compact Flash as MS-DOS boot drive.

Edit: If you consider hardware solutions, too, have a look at XT-IDE Universal BIOS. It can be installed on network cards.
Or use some of these Year 2000 cards with EPROM chips. Some may contain a HDD BIOS in a similar fashion to these "IDE Enhancer" cards: Re: Help Flashing XTIDE Universal bios
Or use an IDE caching controller. It has a HDD BIOS of its own, too.

Edit: Also interesting is an older thread with links about early IDE/ATA disks.
Re: ide to usb adapter

In essence, logical CHS was used before LBA:
"The solution was sector translation: the drive "lies" to the controller,
acting as if it has, say, 10 heads and 1024 cylinders when it actually has 5 heads and 2048 cylinders.
As long as the total space is correct, the BIOS can't tell the difference and there is no need for driver software.
A more advanced form of sector translation allows drive manufacturers to put extra sectors on the outer tracks
(which have more room) but still juggles the extra space back into simple terms that the BIOS can understand.

Nearly all drives over about 60Mb use sector translation."
Source: http://redhill.net.au/o/glos2.html#sectrans

That being said, the PC was not the only platform using IDE/AT-Bus HDDs..
On other platforms, the usual PC BIOS limits didn't exist, so could actually enter values like 1057 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sector.. 😉

1057 cyl, 16 heads, 63 sector, 512 btyes/sector:

So 1057 x 16 x 63 x 512 = ‭‭545,513,472‬ bytes = 545.5 MB = 520.24 MiB so it's correct.

Thanks for the explanation! I've used in the bios the original 1057 cyl setup in CHS and I got somehow to instal a minimal installation of dos using at least the first floppy while the other two are really giving me problems.. if I get to find a way to copy from the others genuine floppy to the hard disk are there any ways to install from the hard disk compressed files to the dos directory manually?
Also beside having installed a cdrom driver (one of the many found online beside seems a bit too big for the memory (it leaves like 500kb of conventional mem) I'll need to manually configure both autoexec.bat and config.sys.

kalohimal wrote on 2020-06-18, 05:31:

1057 cyl, 16 heads, 63 sector, 512 btyes/sector:

So 1057 x 16 x 63 x 512 = ‭‭545,513,472‬ bytes = 545.5 MB = 520.24 MiB so it's correct.

Thanks, I was suspecting the MB <> MiB thing was the point of it cause i usually think only in the MB logic. 😀

If you do not have any more blank floppies to create new ones, you can grab the boot disk iso here. Just burn it to a CD and boot from it, it will boot to a virtual a: drive and you can fdiak/format your hdd from there. Bear in mind they are just boot disks though, so they're bare minimal and lack the other goodies.

I got somehow to get the files into the main dos directory manually even if the disk are really full of tracks problems.. 🙁
I installed one of the lightest cdrom drivers but even without anything else but himem, I got 530Kb of conventional free memory.. I don't understand why so low?
Anyway are there any guide to compile a complete but still optimized autoexec.bat/config.sys?
I don't have many memories about their best configuration.

386SX wrote on 2020-06-18, 17:51:

I got somehow to get the files into the main dos directory manually even if the disk are really full of tracks problems.. :( I i […]
Show full quote

I got somehow to get the files into the main dos directory manually even if the disk are really full of tracks problems.. 🙁
I installed one of the lightest cdrom drivers but even without anything else but himem, I got 530Kb of conventional free memory.. I don't understand why so low?
Anyway are there any guide to compile a complete but still optimized autoexec.bat/config.sys?
I don't have many memories about their best configuration.

Sure there are. Can't name one yet, though.. 😅
As for the low memory.. Try subsitutes for Microsoft drivers, esp. mouse and keyboard drivers. For example, keyb2.com is a tiny driver for QWERTZ keyboards.
And remove ansi.sys and smartdrive if not needed (or use small replacement). FreeDOS is a good source for replacement drivers (cutemouse, SHSUCDX, vide-cdd.sys etc)..

Here's an old config of one of my PCs, as an example (needs to be tweaked).
Mouse driver is MS Mouse 6.24BZ, I believe. BLASTER= variable is missing, also.
But you can also use other, non-MS mice drivers. These worked well for me.:
Re: CuteMouse not working properly
Re: How do you get a serial mouse working

AUTOEXEC.BAT
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\ENSEMBLE;C:\DOS;C:\WINDOWS
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
REM MODE CON CODEPAGE PREPARE=((850) C:\DOS\EGA.CPI)
REM MODE CON CODEPAGE SELECT=850
REM KEYB GR,,C:\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS
REM C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
MSCDEX /D:MSCD001
KEYB2
MOUSE
NCSMALL

CONFIG.SYS
REM DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
REM DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM
DEVICE=C:\DOS\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:MSCD001
REM DEVICE=C:\DOS\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001
REM DEVICE=C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /DOUBLE_BUFFER
DOS=HIGH, UMB
REM COUNTRY=049,850,C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS
REM DEVICE=C:\DOS\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,,1)
BUFFERS=30
FILES=20
STACKS=9,256
FCBS=4

Edit: Again, it's just a very barebone config. No V86, no drivers moved into UMA..

I have a fair collection of various old DOS manuals in paper and also PDF. Unfortunately most are copyrighted or would upload to the library here.
One thing about DOS, it really does not install quite like Windows. It just preps the HD and copy+expands the files off the floppies to the \DOS folder. So if you can expand the files manually and put them in \DOS you have the full install. As for Config.sys and Autoexec.bat the MS DOS 5 manual has a great section on that, the DOS 6.x manual actually lacks a bunch in comparison. There are some great Que books on DOS and you can read a few of them at Archive org but not DL them as they are copyrighted and have a time limit on viewing.