Does anyone know why I am getting this message?
I formatted with /B switch first to allocate room for the system files first then tried 3 times with /S to save system files to disk and keep getting this message.
What is going on here???How big is the partition size? Max partition size, 2 GB. Assuming the partition is not too big, then maybe the disk was already formatted and unformat information was saved at that time, leaving no room for a repeat.

Where it says "Proceed with format (Y/N)?", what happens if you answer "Y" to the question?

Try format c: /S /U

/U means "unconditional" which means you cannot later do an "unformat", which is rarely needed. 2047 mb.

There is no Un-format on the setup disk, I never heard of it and I didn't know you could.
Besides that, why would you, doesn't formatting a disk over-write anyway!?!

If Un-formatting a disk is possible, how do you do it, what does it do that a ZERO writer doesn't do?

I haven't tried to proceed yet because I don't want to mess up the hd.

I have tried to /S without /B first and still get the same message.

This is a brand new hd and I used the setup disk to create and format c: and install the os.
When I went to boot the machine up, it failed to load the os.
So, this is where/ how I ended up here. Can't get system files on hd to boot os.
Should I just copy the IO.sys and MSDOS.sys files from a: to c: or will that not work?

Thanks.
Unformat information is saved if you do FORMAT /S. It seems like you can't anyhow, so just do FORMAT /S

Anyhow, first try SYS C:

You say 'setup disk'. You only have one? MS-DOS install set is 3 disks.


I have all 4 floppy images from a single file I downloaded.
Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Plus Enhanced Tools (3.5).7z which has,
Disk 1 .img
Disk 2 .img
Disk 3 .img
Supplement disk .img

my guess by what you say "Anyhow, first try SYS C: " means it puts the system files on c: for you, idk.
SYS is used to copy the system files from one drive to another drive, allowing that drive to be bootable.

When running sys, the below files will be copied.

command.com
io.sys
msdos.sys
drvspace.binHi Noidly1

If this is a new disk as you say and you don't want anything on the disk ?

Then i would first run fdisk
Delete the partition if there is one on the drive
Create a new Fat16  partition. Dos 6.22 doesn't support Fat32.
Then install DOS from the 3 floppies

I think the error is coming from the Disk being partitioned in Fat 32 format.
 Wonders where DOS is from...Noidly1,
Most new personal computers will not let you boot  DOS 6.22 on a hard drive.
Can you provides information about how old that computer is?
Did it once have MS-DOS on it?
Thanks Salmon, I'll give that a try.

Lisa, I formatted it in FAT 16.

Geek, this is an older PC I built.
ASUS A8N32-SLI
Fastest AMD Dual core 939 socket available (I don't recall the model)
4- Patriot PEP1G3200LL sticks
2- GeForce 8800 Ultra cards
3- 250 gig IDE hd's
1 dvd-rw drive

This is the first time I have run across this problem and am confused as to why this is happening.

I have been messing with this thing over the years trying to build a gaming machine with the ability to multi os for tinkering. Also, I like win 95's defrag over the others.

I learned a while back that SLI does not work in 32bit and needed XP64, which I just found a copy of a couple of months ago.

If your wondering why I am still messing with XP, I am old SCHOOL and do not like the new "Tablet" style os's. If you could look at it this way, I prefer KDE over Gnome style os's... Win 8 and 10 suck *CENSORED*!!!

As for the multi os part, I want to have DOS 6.22, Win3.11, 95, 98SE, XP, XP64 and maybe Win7 along with a few Linux distros.

BTW, my experience with computers is building them, setting them up and running them for about 25 years now, not programming them. I don't know anything about "coding" and don't have the patience or time to tap on a key-board for hours on end. j/s...

Thanks.I also use Windows XP because I can can see better on some web sites if I am running XP and not Windows 10. Hard to understand why, but XP has many more options for ease of use.

A while back a relative gave me a free Gateway computer with Windows 10on it. So I thought I could just put XP on it and do the dual boot thing. I hare being doing dual boot for years, maybe 17 years or more. I don't remember.

Anyway, I found the Gateway BIOS stops me from using XP. Because XP wants MBR and yu have to fiddle with the BIOS to allow MBR on the boot drive.

The point is that at last  I found it in the BIOS stuff and turned off the security things that got in the way. But I had to re format the disk and install everything.
This kind of stuff was documented many years ago. About 2007 maybe.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-and-gpt-faq
Quote

Eventually, data density for disks became too large for the MBR scheme to account for all the available data locations. Also, the layout, or format, of the MBR was designed for early computers and not flexible enough to accommodate newer disk configurations. A new partitioning method was needed so the GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme was created.

VirtualBox is a piece of software published by Oracle. It allows you to EMULATE an operating system on your own PC and use it like it’s running on real hardware. You’ll discover tons of uses for virtual machines.

Like I said B4, I don't see an un-format on the setup disk and never had B4 and don't know why anyone would when you can just re-format it anyway. j/s...