Article ID: 75087
Article Last Modified on 11/16/2006
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0a
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.2 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.21 Standard Edition
- Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 Standard Edition
This article was previously published under Q75087
SUMMARY
When upgrading to MS-DOS 5.0 or later from DOS versions earlier than 3.2, installation from the 3.5-inch MS-DOS 5 Upgrade disks may fail.
Most MS-DOS and OEM DOS versions earlier than DOS 3.2 do not support 3.5- inch floppy drives and thus will not be able to correctly read all the files on 720K disks. When the Setup command is run from MS-DOS 5 Upgrade Disk 1 - Setup, the message "bad command or file name" will be displayed. When the DIR command is used on one of the MS-DOS 5 Upgrade disks, all the files will not be listed, or the filenames will displayed as garbage (extended ASCII characters).
For example, IBM PC-DOS versions 3.0 and 3.1 will provide the following information with the DIR command:
Setup Disk Files on Disk Files Displayed ---------- ------------- --------------- 1 37 5 2 28 0 3 52 27
Other OEM DOS versions may also exhibit the same behavior or display garbage.
MORE INFORMATION
To successfully install the MS-DOS 5 or later Upgrade, do one of the following:
- Obtain the 5.25-inch MS-DOS 5 or 6 Upgrade disks if the computer system has a 5.25-inch floppy drive.
- If another computer that is running DOS 3.2 (or later) with 1.2 MB and 3.5-inch floppy drives is available, and the current system has a 1.2 MB floppy drive, do the following:
- Copy all files from each 3.5-inch MS-DOS 5 or 6 Upgrade floppy disk to three 5.25-inch 1.2 MB disks using the second computer.
- Label the disks as Disk 1, Disk 2, and Disk 3 using the LABEL command. There should be six spaces between the word "Disk" and the number in the volume label (for example, Disk 1).
- Run Setup from the 1.2 MB floppy drive on the first computer.
- Start from a later DOS version that supports a 3.5-inch floppy drive, such as MS-DOS or PC-DOS versions 3.2 or later, and run Setup.
Additional query words: 6.22 3.00 3.20 5.00 5.00a 6.00 6.20
Keywords: KB75087