Cannot Do a Minimal Setup to Floppy Disks in MS-DOS 5.0 (74931)



The information in this article applies to:
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0a

This article was previously published under Q74931

SUMMARY

When you try to do a minimal setup to floppies with the Setup /M /F command, the first setup disk will be read, but it will not prompt for the floppy disk to install the system onto. Setup will terminate assuming that the setup has been successfully completed.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem with Microsoft MS-DOS version 5.0. This problem was corrected in MS-DOS version 5.0a.

MORE INFORMATION

This problem occurs because the /M and /F options are not meant to work together. A workaround is to setup to a floppy disk, then exit after the first disk is done. This will give you a bootable MS-DOS 5.0 disk; however, it will not give you access to many MS-DOS 5.0 commands.

This problem was resolved in the 5.0a release of the MS-DOS 5 Upgrade (file dates of 11/11/91). The /F and /M options work together properly to create a bootable floppy containing the MS-DOS FDISK, FORMAT, SYS, EDLIN, and DEBUG commands. The /F /M combination is intended to be used primarily by Microsoft to assist in troubleshooting problems, and so it is not specifically documented (for example, it is not included in the Help information displayed by typing setup /?. However, the version 5.0a "Microsoft MS-DOS Getting Started" manual does address the /F /M options during an explanation of repartitioning on page 95.

Modification Type: Major Last Reviewed: 9/30/2003
Keywords: KB74931