beeping when pressing keys usually means keyboard buffer full = software too slow to empty it in time. Why would XT-IDE bios cause that I dont know. hmm wrong IRQ set hijacking keyboard?

I tried all jumper settings for IRQ but without any changes.

Maybe I should write info about keyboard into autoexec.bat (UK, USA, doesn't mater only not german) but I forget how to do it.

I dont think that would make any difference. Imo it sounds like a hardware resource conflict.
you could start by revealing model of the mobo, have you tried different bioses for it?

Do you load the Keyb in your boot files? Maybe try to add a REM in front to disable it and see what happens...?
Is it the same DOS version as the boot disk?

So I am not loading any keyb files and I would like to do it but I don't remember how. It is so long time when I was doing it last time. I have to add some lines to autoexec.bat and config. sys for sure. Now I have to go to work for about 2 weeks but I will try all of Your propositions to solve this problem when I will be back to home.

So I have now original XT keyboard and it is working fine (no problem with XT-IDE). I used AT to XT keyboard adapter before so now I know that this adapter is a problem in this case.

So now I came back to this computer and installed MFM controller WD1002S-WX2 (removed XT-IDE) and MFM drive. After turning on my computer without system disk inside FDD it is starting DOS from HDD but again keyboard is not working. There are only beeps but when I start this computer from system disk inside FDD then keyboard is working and I can see what is on HDD. I am using normal, original XT keyboard. Why it is acting like this?

Hi, what PC and DOS version? Maybe helps to solve the issue.

I was using DOS 6.22. I was just taking system boot disk, formatting HDD and transfering system by SYS command but now for the first time I installed DOS 3.3 and everything is working as it should.

I see, thanks for the info! ^^
Yeah, there's sometimes a bit of an compatibility issue between MS-DOS 5/6 and XT era firmware or hardware.

For example, old real-time clock drivers written for MS-DOS 2 or 3 do lock up modern MS-DOS or do other weird things.
Generally speaking, MS-DOS 6.22 is very 16-Bit friendly, though.
I've been running it flawlessly on a couple of 286 and 8088 systems..

If you need more storage, you can try Compaq DOS 3.31 (has larger FAT16 support) for example or some of the other cool OSes.
PC-MOS/386 or Wendin DOS can multitask DOS applications, for example.
They do need lots of conventional memory by comparison, though.
There's a chart over here: Conventional Memory consumption of various DOSes

IBM's DOS is also an alternative.
Beginning with PC-DOS 3.30, IBM's DOS was nolonger 1:1 the same to MS-DOS (they used to be built from same sources).
PC-DOS 3.30 was a bit more advanced than MS-DOS 3.30, also.
Back then it freshly supported PS/2 and clone computers. And 1,44 MB floppies.

I recall using an olivetti m24 (AT&T6300) which was working completely ok, until you loaded the default keyboard driver from microsoft.
After loading KEYB the keyboard would stop working.
the fix was using the original keyboard driver that came with the machine.
Apparently it had a slight difference in talking to the keyboard controller which made it incompatible with the normal keyboard driver.

The easiest way to bypass this problem was of course not loading any keyboard driver.

For me it was something new. My first computer was 486DX2/80 and I never used earlier versions of DOS than 6.22. I had to create floppies with DOS and You should have seen my surprise when I didn't notice files like setup.exe or install.exe but thank's to some video on YouTube I did it.
Jo22 You wrote:
"Beginning with PC-DOS 3.30, IBM's DOS was nolonger 1:1 the same to MS-DOS (they used to be built from same sources).
PC-DOS 3.30 was a bit more advanced than MS-DOS 3.30, also.
Back then it freshly supported PS/2 and clone computers. And 1,44 MB floppies".
I have some 8bit ISA floppy controller with support for 1,44MB floppies and I want to try it some day. Do You think that I should use some other DOS for it?

Jo22 wrote on 2025-11-29, 19:38:

IBM's DOS is also an alternative. Beginning with PC-DOS 3.30, IBM's DOS was nolonger 1:1 the same to MS-DOS (they used to be bui […]
Show full quote

IBM's DOS is also an alternative.
Beginning with PC-DOS 3.30, IBM's DOS was nolonger 1:1 the same to MS-DOS (they used to be built from same sources).
PC-DOS 3.30 was a bit more advanced than MS-DOS 3.30, also.
Back then it freshly supported PS/2 and clone computers. And 1,44 MB floppies.

It might very well be true that PC-DOS 3.30 is not 1:1 the same thing as MS-DOS 3.30, but the support for 1.44MB floppies is a bad example. MS-DOS 3.30 also does support this floppy type.

I had a similar issue but I think it was my keyboard adapter that caused issues with XT-IDE.

mkarcher wrote on 2025-11-29, 22:58:

It might very well be true that PC-DOS 3.30 is not 1:1 the same thing as MS-DOS 3.30, but the support for 1.44MB floppies is a bad example. MS-DOS 3.30 also does support this floppy type.

Hi, sorry, I guess it just came to mind because of then-new PS/2 technology. 😅
PC-DOS 3.30 was the first one to support it, though, as far as I remember.

The second thing I vaguely remember is that the FDISK program was different.
PC-DOS FDISK had less bugs when working with large HDDs;
ie, it didn't have an overrun issue (disk geometry exceeding the limits) or something along these lines.

Wikipedia claims that PC-DOS 3.30 was around 4 months before MS-DOS 3.30.
With 3.30, for the first time, IBM acknowledged the compatibles here.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_DOS#Geschichte

Another "feature" was that PC-DOS 3.30 had an overhauled manual.
It now featured a yellow bird, a parrot (?) that teaches DOS basics.
So technically, PC-DOS 3.30 was the first to feature a mascot.