I have one PIECE of software which ran on a 386dx40. Today (14 years in) I finally got the "non sytem disk error".
I have moved the HDD to a E-Machine PC running Win XP SP2. With the HDD installed alone my old program was able to launch. (Full DOS 6 environment is working along with FAT, MBR ? I just know enough to be dangerous)
I have copied the files to 2 locations for archival purposes and hope to still run the DOS program.
btw, Windows XP does not report errors on the Drive.
Question/Opinions please..
Would I want a DOS emulator? my program will not run with Win XP running. (In command window or outside of it)
Would I want to use a boot manager - not my choice as I need both systems open all day.then you might want to use a emulator, try dosbox http://dosbox.com/ i use it to play Street fighter 2 and it works good,That application wouldn't be the Borland QUATRO spreadsheet would it?

I KEPT a spreadsheet with it under DOS, and ever since my last DOS machine died a number of years ago I've been thinking I OUGHT to resurrect that thing somehow. But Quatro won't run in a Windows command prompt window or under Wine on Linux like I had hoped. I tried some other emulator quite a while ago, maybe it was DOSBox, but it didn't work either.

Some DOS programs really bent the rules of good software design in the NAME of performance, and now you can't run them.

One thing I don't think I tried yet is to boot some PC with a FreeDOS CD and try it.

But anyway, there are three options here that might work, depending on what application it is:
FreeDOS, DOSBox, and Wine.Ken, the program is for Print Estimating, so it is mostly a database spreadsheet application. DOSBox has it up and running smoothly. I've edited the DOSBox.conf file to launch my program automatically. The authors last instruction to change directory may be in error as DOSBox errors. From the c:> I simply execute my program .com