How to format DOS partition?

I'm trying to allow the booting of either MS-DOS (version 5.00 or 6.22) or
SCO Openserver 5.0.7 from a SCSI drive. At boot time, the "bootos ?"
command shows that there's both a DOS_16 partition (32 MB in size) and an
Osr (8.5 GB in size) partition. (I installed Osr 5.0.7 with the "custom"
partition option.) Osr 5.0.7 boots fine, but when bootong from an MS-DOS
floppy, the MS-DOS fdisk command doesn't see any valid DOS partitions on the
hard drive.

I've booted a couple parttion managers from a bootable CD-ROM, and they see
both partitions, as well as unused space and the master boot record (MBR).

Any suggestions on how I can format the DOS_16 partition so that it will
boot dos when I enter the DOS command at the "boot:" prompt?

Thanks in advance.

Arby typed (on Fri, Sep 21, 2007 at 01:20:33PM -0400):
| I'm trying to allow the booting of either MS-DOS (version 5.00 or 6.22) or
| SCO Openserver 5.0.7 from a SCSI drive. At boot time, the "bootos ?"
| command shows that there's both a DOS_16 partition (32 MB in size) and an
| Osr (8.5 GB in size) partition. (I installed Osr 5.0.7 with the "custom"
| partition option.) Osr 5.0.7 boots fine, but when bootong from an MS-DOS
| floppy, the MS-DOS fdisk command doesn't see any valid DOS partitions on the
| hard drive.
|
| I've booted a couple parttion managers from a bootable CD-ROM, and they see
| both partitions, as well as unused space and the master boot record (MBR).
|
| Any suggestions on how I can format the DOS_16 partition so that it will
| boot dos when I enter the DOS command at the "boot:" prompt?

I've always thought it was necessary to install DOS (or Windows) first,
and then install OSR 5.

--
JP
==> [url]http://www.frappr.com/cusm[/url] <==

In article <20070921173955.GE2980@jpradley.jpr.com> Jean-Pierre Radley <jpr@jpr.com> writes:
$I've always thought it was necessary to install DOS (or Windows) first,
$and then install OSR 5.

I believe that's what the manuals have said for at least the 17
years I've been working with SCO OSes. So I've never tried doing it
the other way around.

Do you have any versions of Windows handy? If so, see if they can
do things with the partition. I'm not suggesting that you try to install
XP into your 32 MB partition :-) but if you can get some version of
Windows to format it as a FAT partition, it's possible that DOS may
then be able to see it.
--
Stephen M. Dunn <stephen@stevedunn.ca>[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>>----------------> [url]http://www.stevedunn.ca/[/url] <----------------<<<[/color][/color][/color]
------------------------------------------------------------------
Say hi to my cat -- [url]http://www.stevedunn.ca/photos/toby/[/url]

"Jean-Pierre Radley" <jpr@jpr.com> wrote in message
news:20070921173955.GE2980@jpradley.jpr.com...[color=blue]
> Arby typed (on Fri, Sep 21, 2007 at 01:20:33PM -0400):
> | I'm trying to allow the booting of either MS-DOS (version 5.00 or 6.22)
> or
> | SCO Openserver 5.0.7 from a SCSI drive. At boot time, the "bootos ?"
> | command shows that there's both a DOS_16 partition (32 MB in size) and
> an
> | Osr (8.5 GB in size) partition. (I installed Osr 5.0.7 with the
> "custom"
> | partition option.) Osr 5.0.7 boots fine, but when bootong from an
> MS-DOS
> | floppy, the MS-DOS fdisk command doesn't see any valid DOS partitions on
> the
> | hard drive.
> |
> | I've booted a couple parttion managers from a bootable CD-ROM, and they
> see
> | both partitions, as well as unused space and the master boot record
> (MBR).
> |
> | Any suggestions on how I can format the DOS_16 partition so that it will
> | boot dos when I enter the DOS command at the "boot:" prompt?
>
> I've always thought it was necessary to install DOS (or Windows) first,
> and then install OSR 5.
>
> --
> JP
> ==> [url]http://www.frappr.com/cusm[/url] <==[/color]

Thanks. Your suggestion worked. All that was required was to wipe
everything clean and start again. After MS-DOS 6.22's FDISK command failed
to work on this drive (for some reason), I tried "Free FDISK", version
1.3.0, by Brian E. Reifsnyder, and it worked perfectly. It's just 38kB in
size and looks and feels just like MS-DOS's fdisk. With it, I created a 30
MB DOS_16 partition, formatted it, installed the DOS files that I needed
there, then installed Osr 5.0.7 (again). Osr's boot manager now works as
documented.

Thanks to Symbios's aspi8xx.sys and cdsym.sys drivers, DOS now sees the
CD-ROM.

This server-to-be has a second SCSI drive; I'll probably just use a freeware
version of the MS-DOS based Ranish Partition Manager to copy the entire
disk0 image to the second drive . . . to be used if I mess up the
installation: reboot, goto DOS at the boot: prompt, run the partition
manager, clone the second drive unto the first drive, reboot, and cross my
fingers.

For grins I'm playing with NDIS drivers on the onboard NIC. I'm accustomed
to having NetWare servers available as all-purpose file servers, but none
exist at this site. I wonder if I can get some version of Microsoft's SMB
working on DOS???

Is there a DOS based Drive Image- or Ghost- like program that's smart enough
to compress SCO Osr Unix partitions when creating an image file?

"Stephen M. Dunn" <stephen@stevedunn.ca> wrote in message
news:Joqu6u.44p@stevedunn.ca...[color=blue]
> In article <20070921173955.GE2980@jpradley.jpr.com> Jean-Pierre Radley
> <jpr@jpr.com> writes:
> $I've always thought it was necessary to install DOS (or Windows) first,
> $and then install OSR 5.
>
> I believe that's what the manuals have said for at least the 17
> years I've been working with SCO OSes. So I've never tried doing it
> the other way around.
>
> Do you have any versions of Windows handy? If so, see if they can
> do things with the partition. I'm not suggesting that you try to install
> XP into your 32 MB partition :-) but if you can get some version of
> Windows to format it as a FAT partition, it's possible that DOS may
> then be able to see it.
> --
> Stephen M. Dunn <stephen@stevedunn.ca>[color=green][color=darkred]
>>>>----------------> [url]http://www.stevedunn.ca/[/url] <----------------<<<[/color][/color]
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Say hi to my cat -- [url]http://www.stevedunn.ca/photos/toby/[/url][/color]

Thanks for the ideas. I used the SCSI controller to format the first drive,
created the DO_16 partition first, then installed Osr 5.0.7, and it worked.
I tried the freeware DOS Ranish Partition Manager to copy the disk to a
second disk, then restored from the second disk to the first disk, and it
works as I'd hoped it would.

Now I can proceed to trying to get both a DLT and a QIC tape drive installed
.. . .