Troubleshooting

Your BIOS must be configured to search for a boot disc before booting from hard disc. This can be configured by pressing DEL or F8 at the beginning of the boot sequence. A menu should appear (mostly blue background). Search for an option like “BIOS FEATURE SETUP “ and select it. There should be another options like “Boot sequence” or in newer BIOS menues there are also options called “1st boot device”, “2nd boot drive”. You have to configure your BIOS in that way, that drive A: is in first place. CD-ROM (if possible) should be second and at last there should be the hard disc (normally “C:”). So your option should look like this:
“boot sequence = A,CD-ROM,C”
or if you have a different BIOS:
“1rst boot device” = “Floppy”
“2nd boot device” = “CD-ROM”
“3rd boot device” = “IDE-0”
Save these options and quit BIOS. Your system should restart now and booting from disc (if you have the disc inserted into your drive).

2. My CD-ROM drive is not recognized.

If you own a SCSI drive, USB drive or ATAPI drive with interface card, it’s likely that Easy Dos Boot Disk Creator can not detect your CD-ROM drive. Sometimes, DVD drives are not detected, too. In this case, you have to update the dos system’s file manually. For this, you first have to look for DOS Drivers for your CD-ROM drive. You’ll find these mostly on normal floppy discs (telling something of DOS driver for CD-ROM etc). As these are normally not installed, you should install them by running a program like SETUP.EXE or INSTALL.EXE from this disc (you normally are able to start these programs under Windows). Then you have to copy several lines of code into the files “CONFIG.SYS” and “AUTOEXEC.BAT” on your boot disc. Look at topic “How do I install DOS drivers manually?” to see how this works.
Note: If you do not have such driver discs for DOS drivers, it’s likely you can not use your component with DOS and it’s just Windows compatible.

3. My Mouse is not recognized.

If you own an USB mouse it’s likely that Easy Dos Boot Disk Creator can not detect your mouse. In some cases, also infrared mouses are not detected properly. In this case, you have to update the dos system’s file manually. For this, you first have to look for DOS Drivers for your mouse. You’ll find these mostly on normal floppy discs (telling something of mouse driver for DOS etc - do NOT install device drivers for Windows as they are useless). As these drivers are normally not installed, you should install them by running a program like SETUP.EXE or INSTALL.EXE from this disc (you normally are able to start these programs under Windows). Then you have to copy several lines of code into the files “CONFIG.SYS” and “AUTOEXEC.BAT” on your boot disc. Look at topic “How do I install DOS drivers manually?” to see how this works.
Note: If you do not have such driver discs for DOS drivers, it’s likely you can not use your component with DOS and it’s just Windows compatible.

4. My Mouse is recognized but doesn’t work in some applications!

If at the beginning, you can see that your mouse is installed (no error message), however, the mouse still doesn’t work in just some single application or games, it’s likely you’ll need a different mouse driver. When running the Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator Wizard, you are able to choose between two different mouse drivers. If the one doesn’t work, choose the other one! You should also try to download the original Microsoft Mouse Driver for DOS from some download pages in the internet. Then copy this driver to your hard disc or boot disc and before running these applications, load the Microsoft Mouse Driver (it will normally replace the installed mouse driver from Easy Dos Boot Creator for this session) and then start the application. If the application still does not recognize your mouse, try to install your own DOS mouse driver (if delivered) manually (see above).

5. I can’t access my hard drive.

Note: Drives compressed with Double Space or Drive Space or any other disc compressor can not be accessed by Easy Dos Boot Disc Creator! If you have a disc compressed with any of these programs and just see some big files yon your hard disc and no free space, you have to decompress your hard disc (there are certain options in the compression programs to do this).
Note: Alternatively, if your drive is compressed by Double Space, you could load the DBLSPACE.SYS driver (is likely to be found in your DOS or WINDOWS\COMMAND directory) into config.sys manually and try to access your hard drive then. If you use Drive Space compression (most Windows user do), there is little possibility to access this drive, as drive space drives can normally only be read by the DOS version contained in Windows95/98/ME.
Easy Dos Boot Disc Creator can just access drives, that are formated in FAT or FAT32 - there is also a (still buggy) support for NTFS drives (used in WindowsNT or WindowsXP - learn more about this here) included. If you hard disc has a different format (like HPFS) you won’t be able to access your hard disc! In this case, or if you have problems with DOS programs concerning your hard disc in general, consider the section: How can I make my hard disc compatible, so it can be used with DOS?

Notice!! Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator can only access FAT32 partitions up to 8 GB! If your FAT32 hard disc is larger than 8 GB, please refer to the section “ How can I access FAT32 discs larger than 8 GB?”

Notice!! Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator’s NTFS device driver is only able to *read* NTFS partitions, it won’t be able to write to it. If you need to write to your NTFS drive as well, please refer to the section: How can I make my hard disc compatible, so it can be used with DOS?

6. How do I install DOS drivers manually?

To install drivers under DOS is not as easy as under Windows. If you need to install a driver manually you should best look for a friend who is used to DOS and can help to. To make a complete guide of how to configure DOS would be to long here. I want to explain just the single steps a little bit. Probably you’ll get the thing up and running.
First of all, if your dos drivers for your component (CD-ROM etc) is not yet installed (they aren’t normally under Windows), it’s the best to open Windows “Notepad” and open the files “autoexec.bat” and “config.sys” in the directory C:\ (the root directory). If both or one of the file is missing, that means, that the file is empty, so you don’t have to open it. When you can open one or both of them, you should best make a print copy of it. Then install the DOS drivers under Windows (it’s normally not a problem to install DOS drivers under Windows, sometimes it can be a problem under WinXP or NT). After installing it reopen the files again with notepad and note the changes the setup program has done to these files. Sometimes, in both of the files there have been changes (CD-ROM), sometimes just in one of them (Mouse). Now you have to copy these new lines into the AUTOEXEC.BAT and/or CONFIG.SYS on your boot disc (drive A:\): Open these files with notepad on your boot disc and add the lines exactly as they appear in AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS on C:\.
Now you have to adjust the directories of these lines. You have to change every directory of C: just to A:\.
For example if you have installed your SCSI CD-ROM device driver, setup will have added a line in your CONFIG.SYS on drive C: similar to this:
DEVICE=C:\DRIVERS\SCSICD.SYS /MSCD000
C:\DRIVERS\ is the directory, where the Driver was installed.
Now you add this line to your CONFIG.SYS on drive A: and change the line in:
DEVICE=A:\SCSICD.SYS /MSCD000
Make the same steps with AUTOEXEC.BAT. Then you have to copy the drivers (normally SOMENAME.SYS for drivers of CONFIG.SYS, SOMENAME.EXE for drivers of AUTOEXEC.BAT) directly to your disc. In this case, you would have copied the SCSICD.SYS from C:\DRIVERS to drive A: - that’s it!
If you already have DOS drivers installed and/or can not see, where the changes have been made, you have to look for the interesting line on your own. A line containing the word “mouse” is obviously used to load a Mouse driver, while CD and MSCDEX normally stands for CD device drivers.
Again: In normal issues, you won’t need to adjust your drivers manually. The only important thing for you to adjust manually should be the sound card drivers (and in some case the graphic drivers). Because these drivers can’t be loaded automatically by Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator.

7. Where do I add the driver lines in CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT?

Easy to say, it doesn’t matter actually. The best thing here is, to add the lines just at the end of the files. There are some device drivers that have to be loaded before or after are certain other driver, but the program normally will tell you that. If you just want to replace certain generic drivers of Easy Dos Boot Disc Creator it’s easier: Just delete the line where the generic mouse driver or CD-ROM driver of Easy Dos Boot Disc Creator is loaded and replace it with your line. When you open AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS on your boot disc, you will see comments that help you to find your way through this file.

Notice: If you use the Wizard to configure your DOS, all manual configuration done since the last time you used the wizard will be overwritten!

8. I have so much drivers installed that I have not enough conventional memory free!

This problem existed until Windows was established and can still be a problem with some dos games. If your dos game tell you, that you need more conventional memory (that’s all free memory below 640kb), then you should restart the Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator Wizard and leave out drivers you don’t need - also notice the “Lastdrive Option” in the Wizard to set up your last drive to save conventional memory. If you wan’t to do it manually, you can also start to throw out device drivers of CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT you don’t need.
As next step, change all DEVICE in CONFIG.SYS in DEVICEHIGH. Add to every driver line in AUTOEXEC.BAT the letters “LH”
(e.g.,
“A:\MSCDEX.EXE /MSCD000”
gets
“LH A:\MSCDEX.EXE /MSCD000”)
(if then some drivers can’t be loaded anymore, remove the LH command again)

Notice: If you use the Wizard to configure your DOS, all manual configuration done since the last time you used the wizard will be overwritten!

9. How can I get EMS memory?

Some DOS programs (especially LucasArts games like Sam’n Max or DOTD) use a speciall kind of memory called EMS. If your program tells you, you need EMS memory, you should run the Wizard and configure DOS for using EMS memory. Alternatively, you could add the following line to your CONFIG.SYS on your boot disc with notepad:
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE AUTO
Note: This driver ist (c) by Caldera, but it’s not full compatible with some games (especially DOS/4GW). If you have problems with this driver, search your Windows directory for a file called EMM386.EXE and replace the file on your disc with that one of Windows (it’s also better make a backup of the file first). Then add the following lines to CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS (if not already there)
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE AUTO

10. How do I use the dos prompt?

I have an own site to this issue. Click here.

11. My dos programs run to fast!

This is a common problem. Older dos games just often run to quickly on newer machines. To solve this, I’ve put a small freeware program onto the boot disc. It’s automatically copied to the disc when creating it. It’s called SLOWDOWN.EXE (by Bret Johnson). If you want to slowdown a game, start the game by the following command, when you have changed into its directory:
A:\SLOWDOWN /XXXX PROGRAM.EXE
where PROGRAM.EXE is the name of the start command and /XXXX is a certain speed number (the lower the number, that slowlier the game runs). Just test a little bit until you find the number that suits you.
If you type in
A:\SLOWDOWN /?
the program will show you, what number you’ll have to choose to slow the machine down to the speed of an AT or an XT machine.

12. How do I install DOS games best?

The easiest way is to install it to your hard disc under windows, if this works. Then reboot with the dos boot disc and start it. If this doesn’t work, reboot with the dos boot disc and install the dos game in dos mode. If the dos game runs from CD, it shouldn’t be a problem. Just start the SETUP program on your CD. If the game uses discs, it’s the best if you either burn the discs on one CD under Windows or copy all discs to the harddisc (under Windows) and start the installation program in boot disc mode from hard disc. If this also fails, you can try to install it from floppy discs. However, it’s not guaranted, that this works. In most cases, you will sometimes have to re-insert the dos boot disc (this disc normally should STAY in the disc drive) if it asks for the COMMAND.COM. In most cases it can be that the systems just breaks down, if it can’t find the dos discs in the floppy drive. It’s a good way if you have two floppy drives installed. Then you could use drive B.

13. How can I make my hard disc compatible, so it can be used with DOS?

The biggest problem is, that DOS is used to the FAT16 format. However, since Windows, there have been a lot of different formats.
With Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator you can not:
- access FAT32 drives larger than 8 GB!
- write to NTFS drives
How to convert NTFS drives to FAT32:
If you use WindowsNT and have NTFS installed, you should convert your hard disc into the FAT32 format. You can acheive this by the program Partition Magic by PowerQuest above version 7 without any data loss.
First, you should alway backup your harddiscs, then run PartitionMagic and choose convert. If the option to convert is grayed out, you need to create free space on your hard disk (just resize your harddisc with the resize option of Partition Magic). This gives PartitionMagic more space to do the job. In some cases, you have to uncompress your files first - refer to the homepage of Partition Magic to see, how you acheive this.

How to convert NTFS drives to FAT16:
First convert to FAT32, than read the section below!

How to convert FAT32 drives to FAT16:
If your FAT32 hard disc is smaller or equal to 8 GB, you don’t have to convert it. Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator should be able to access it. If this causes problems or doesn’t work in any way, go on reading:

The best thing you can do to access hard discs with Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator is to create a FAT16 partition on your hard disc.
a) If your FAT32 disc is smaller or equal to 2 GB of storage, you can easily convert it to FAT16: You can acheive this by the program Partition Magic by PowerQuest above version 5 without any data loss. Just choose the Convert option of Partition Magic. You should not have your disc compressed by any hard disc compression program.
b) If your FAT32 disc is larger then 2 GB, the best thing you can do, is to resize your hard disc with the resize option of Partition Magic. Just resize it and make the hard disc approx. 500 MB smaller. This should be enough for a second partition. Now you can use the free space behind the hard disc to create a FAT16 partition. Just choose “Create” in PartitionMagic and set parameters to FAT (not FAT32!). You are ready to go, DOS shouldn’t have any more problems.
Note: You must not create the FAT16 partition as “extended partition”!
c) If your FAT32 disc is larger then 8 GB, but you want to access is by Easy DOS boot disc creator, refer to this section.

What can I do if I don’t own Partition Magic?
It this case, you’ll have to use the program FDISK instead. You’ll find this program on your Easy DOS Boot Disc. Use it carefully! You won’t be able to create another FAT16 partition without any data loss! Read this page for more information on how to use it.

14. What is the Easy DOS Boot disc creator Wizard? How can I start it a second time?

It’s a small Wizard that will help 1st-DOS-users to configure their DOS. It will lead you through the most important steps like memory management or CD-ROM and Mouse configuration.
You can acess the Wizard by typing in at the command line:
A:\wizard (and press ENTER)
However, the Wizard can not replace a right configured DOS - so if you are used to DOS, you should also configure some of your drivers manually.

Notice: If you use the Wizard to configure your DOS, all manual configuration done since the last time you used the wizard will be overwritten!

15. My graphic or sound card is not recognized by most dos games!

I have an own site to this issue. Click here.

16. How can I access FAT32 discs larger than 8 GB?

If your hard disc partition is larger than 8 GB, there is still a change to get it run by DOS without the need of Partition Magic or FDISK. If you own Windows98 or ME, you could replace the OpenDOS system files by the WindowsDOS system files. This is how you do it:
1. Create a new boot disc with the Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator icon in Windows.
2. Boot in Windows98/ME.
3. Open a DOS box (or choose “Start>Run”, then type in “command”)
4. In the command line, type in “sys A:” and press ENTER.
5. Search for the file HIMEM.SYS in your WINDOWS directory, copy this file to your boot disc.
5. Reboot the disc, the Wizard should be loaded (if it does not, type in “WIZARD” and press ENTER).
6. Do not load the FAT32 support, when asked!
7. Reboot, your FAT32 hard disc should be available now.

17. What’s a partition?

A partition is a part of your hard disc. You can divide your hard discs into different partitons (so you would have different drives like C: D: E: to access the hard disc). Every partition can be formatted in different formats.

18. What can I do, if I want to use my Easy DOS Boot Disc for reformatting my system?

Not a problem. All necessary tools for formatting will be on the disc (use FDISK, or -if you *can* access your hard disc, type in FORMAT C:). Before fromatting, make sure, that Easy DOS Boot Disc Creator can access your CD-ROM drive if you want to install a new operating system from CD.

Note: If you are not used to reformat your system with FDISK, read this page for more information on how to use it.

19. Can I acess long file names in DOS?

Normally, the DOS format is limited to 8 characters + 3 characters extension. But if you want to use long file names under DOS, there is a tool on the disc called LFNDOS. Read LFNDOS.DOC for more information.

Easy Dos Boot Disc Creator (c) by Basti 2002, built with OpenDOS/DR DOS by Caldera