Failed MS DOS re-installation

[Kletos]

I am trying to install MS DOS on a clean new SATA drive in a computer which previously had both MS DOS and FreeDOS running on a similar drive. This is an ASUS M2N32 WS Pro MB

I have configured a C partition of 502 Mb, FAT 16, active, in first position. I get an error box which reads: "Cannot install MS DOS 6.22 on your computer. Your computer does not have a hard disk, or your disk is not functioning correctly, or your disk requires a special disk driver."

I presume the problem is the lack of a proper driver. What should I use, where do I get it, and how to I apply it? I know it has to work somehow because I already ran MS DOS on this same box, same MB, same BIOS, for several years.

Thank you,

Kletos

 

[pauls3743]

Might sound really simple and obvious was the hard drive partitioned on this computer and does this computer still see it? (Check in the bios)

 

[Ijack]

You shouldn't need drivers to access any hard disk from DOS as long as the BIOS sees it (and it is partitioned in a way that the OS understands). All hard disk access in MS-DOS is done via BIOS calls, unlike Windows 95 and newer, so drivers don't come into it.

 

[Alabalcho]

You might check your BIOS settings, anc change that hard-dist from AHCI to IDE mode.
DOS was last updated about twenty years ago, when hard drives were measured in megabytes, not terabytes

Edit: You may also try to boot DOS clean (keep <Shift> key pressed during startup), and manually execute FDISK and partition your disk.

 

[Kletos]

Actually, the problem turned out to be a failing motherboard -- several capacitors around the RAM area showed signs of failure, which explains many of the flaky things the box has been doing of late. So we swap out the MB, whereupon I expect all the problems to have been well taken care of.