Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!alberta!mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA!David_Halliwell
From: userDHAL@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA (David Halliwell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: question about dos
Message-ID: <1969@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA>
Date: 29 Nov 90 03:52:05 GMT
References: <1990Nov26.172206.244@eng.umd.edu> <1427@tnosoes.izf.tno.nl>
Organization: MTS Univ of Alberta
Lines: 46

In article <1427@tnosoes.izf.tno.nl>, joris@tnosoes.izf.tno.nl (Joris Linssen) writes:
>yun@eng.umd.edu (Dragon Taunter) writes:
>
>>I have been handed down an old AT with 512K ram.  It has a full hard
>>disk which I do not want to overwrite.  How do I upgrade to a newer dos?
>>I suspect that there is more to it than copying over everything in /DOS
>
>Well, this is supposed to be easy:
>
>1. Boot your computer from floppy with the new DOS version.
>2. After confirming date and time enter SYS A: C: from the command line.
>   This will transfer two hidden files from floppy to hard disk.
 
.    I think an important step was omitted here. SYS transfers only the two
hidden files, as Joris states, but it soes NOT transfer COMMAND.COM, which
is necessary for the computer to boot. It isn't good enough to have it in
a subdirectory (e.g. \DOS): it must be in the root directory unless you
have specified a different command processor in CONFIG.SYS. So, add step
 
2.5 Copy COMMAND.COM from the floppy to the root directory of the hard disk.
 
.    If you omit this, when you boot you will likely see a message about
a bad or missing COMMAND.COM.
 
.    If the disk is REALLY full, you may need to make room for the files
by deleting some things, because DOS is constantly getting bigger. Starting
somewhere in the version 3.x range, it was no longer necessary to have
space for the hidden files at the START of the disk: they could be non-
contiguous, as long as the directory entries were at the start of the
root directory. For older versions, you had to clean up the beginning of
the disk.
 
>3. Copy the DOS utility files from A: to the system subdirectory on your hard
>   disk, for example C:\DOS
>4. Say a quick prayer and reboot you computer from hard disk. Normally this
>   works (but then, when does something work normally in a DOS environment :-),
>   but should a problem occur, you can always restore your old version with the
>   same procedure.
>5. In case of trouble contact your local DOS whizard,
>
>                                                                good luck,
>                                                                    Jori$.
 
Good luck^2.
 
Dave Halliwell
#! r