I have installed MSdos 71 on my old HP Vectra 386 but I cant get it to boot up. After bios its says 'Cannot FIND operating system' then it hangs. There is no other OS on this system. When I use a startup floppy for WIN 98 to get to dos prompt and I type autoexec, then MSdos starts up. I have done the sys c: and it was a success, I even tried tinkering with MSDos.sys file but after several fdisk /mbr, rebuilding mbr etc, I am still not able to boot from C: hard drive.

Any help is appreciated.Where is this copy of DOS from ? ?...sys C:\ has to be done PRIOR to the install not after...The Win98 floppy ain't gettin you into the installed DOS...its simply gettin you to command off the floppy.

Start over...MS-DOS 7.1 is a non-official (pirated) release of MS-DOS that is ripped out of Windows 98 OSR-B or Windows 98. The setup program lies and says it is under GNU GPL. It's not. It also gives a good impression that it is an official product. Again- it's not.

Try to get a "real" version of MS-DOS and see if you have better luck.+ 1...Ok guys, thanks for your response, I did not know that MSdos 7 was not genuine, I will GO and try 6 or Freedos though I was hoping to keep it MS not knowing that its not all that glitters is gold.Hello guys, I have installed Freedos and still cannot get a bootable hard drive, the message now is read error while reading drive.

ThanksThen the HDD is failingQuote from: patio on July 06, 2018, 10:06:38 PM

Then the HDD is failing

most of the current Dos software out there that have been written in the last 5 to 10 years like Freedos, mbr utilities etc, are actually written with Linux. Not all Bios can read Linux. When u stick in a bootable floppy that is coded in Linux, it wont boot, u will see a few dots on the screen then it will hang. I also noticed that if u used any of these so called Dos utilities that are code with Linux to fdisk or format ur drive on such a old computer, earlier fdisk will not be able to read such drive.