PC -DOS 6.3 IBM Thinkpad 360cs

I posted earlier on how to install windows 3.1 ....... well I found windows 3.0 and installed it,but got an error at the end of installation ( I put in the wrong number disk at the end). Anyway I deleted everything off of my c: drive...which was ony the win3.0 and must have deleted something to do with PC DOS 6.3 because now I get this message that says bad command or missing file when I type in the basic DOS commands...like "dir" "ver"...things like that. Says I do not have a command interpreter. It says example like c:\command.com. I do not have PC DOS 6.3 disk but do have the bootup disk for it. Or I have DOS 6.22 installation disk with boot up disk also. I get a c: prompt everytime it boots up but I cannot change it to a: ..... it keeps telling me a bad command.....so without the a: floppy drive, how will I install DOS 6.22 or use boot up disk? Anyone help...I am lost...please? thanks
Tim

Though PC DOS was created by IBM it is essentially the same as MSDOS. If you have DOS 6.22 then install it instead. The command interpreter is command.com. Most directory commands in PCDOS are the same as MSDOS so there is no great advantage over either.
Boot from the MDSOS 6.22 1st disk and when it asks you to run setup say yes if you want to setup MSDOS on your system.
OR say no and switch to your first Win 3.0 disk.
Remember though that Win 3.x is a DOS shell not an operating system. (It can be placed on top of PCDOS provided the command.com is there, though you might feel better putting a microsoft product on top of a microsoft product.
Internal DOS commands are found in Command.com
Commands like copy, type and dir.

thanks tiberiuscan ..... i go into setup on my laptop and change the floppy drive to read first...then insert dos6.22 bootup disk.....i then get an a:prompt......ok, i have this much done, so does anything from bootup disk get copied to hard drive or just left on floppy? I was told by someone else that when i used the dos6.22 disk#1 and got the setup going...remove and then type format c: and let it format...then load disk #1 again and continue. i cannot use my dos 6.22 disk #1 for start up because it is on the disk as an .exe as is disk#2 and #3. I had bootup disk in floppy and formatted c: then i copied the dos 6.22.exe to c:\ from my a:\ and typed in from c:\ dos622-1.exe [enter] and it did the inflating thing...i proceeded on with #2 and #3 disk...then i put in win3.0 disk #1 in floppy and from a:\ setup and it started to install asking for each disk as it loaded. BUT ,when I take disk out and then change my setup to not just boot from floppy but hard drive also...i get the same thing i had before...bad command or etc. What would i need to do? did i do all of this wrong? Oh. after installing windows i had to reboot and when i did that is when i had to type in "win" at the c:\ and then got the" bad command message" I hope someone can help me...just show me some knowledge. Thanks
Tim

If the PATH statement in the AUTOEXEC.BAT does not include C:\WINDOWS\ in it, typing WIN when at C:\> will give you a "Bad command or filename" error.

So, you could amend the path statement, or type c:\windows\win every time.

Hi timnc I think it's possible that your DOS 6.22 disk may be corrupted or that of your Win 3.1 disk.
You can check your autoexec.bat file by simply typing at c:\edit autoexec.bat but your Setup disks should have altered your autoexec.bat for you.

then i put in win3.0 disk #1

It's possible that the Windows 3.0 setup didn't alter CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT (Windows 3.0 was released when people still took the responsibility to learn how to actually operate a computer beyond point and click.) Additionally-- in very early versions of DOS you could not run a program by specifying the path to it, rather, the executable must either lie in the default directory (the directory the prompt shows you are in) or in a directory already in the path. This is all very speculative on my part-- Windows 3.0 was released in May 1990, the current DOS version at the time was DOS 4.01, but it's possible that a major portion of the development was done on DOS 3.3, and therefore steps were probably taken to ensure full compatibility with DOS 3.3. However, I'm not clear on whether DOS 3.3 had the path limititation I describe-- I do know that DOS 2.11.1x did have that limitation. (The joys of the Tandy 2000. Don't get me started on the amazing opportunity Tandy had with that machine, with its 80186, but screwed up on because the machine was MS-DOS compatible but not IBM PC-Compatible.)

It could also be possible that CONFIG.SYS does not have the SHELL= statement setup properly. SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /P or SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM /E:512 /P should be present in CONFIG.SYS. Without the /p, the AUTOEXEC.BAT will not be processed and the PATH statement included within, as well as the WIN or C:\WINDOWS\WIN command will be ignored. (the /E:512 is used to increase the amount of environment space from the default 160 bytes to 512. This is important if you have a long path or if there are other SET statements, like the ubiquitous SET BLASTER= statement.)

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i go into setup on my laptop and change the floppy drive to read first...then insert dos6.22 bootup disk.....i then get an arompt......ok, i have this much done, so does anything from bootup disk get copied to hard drive or just left on floppy?

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Boot from the floppy should copy nothing to your hard drive.
When you get to the A Prompt and type dir. What files do you see on the disk?

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i cannot use my dos 6.22 disk #1 for start up because it is on the disk as an .exe as is disk#2 and #3.

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This is not an install disk. The procedure you stated probably installed the files to C:\ instead of C:\DOS. If the first install resulted in the files being copied to C:\, you may want to start over. Otherwise you can move them to C:\DOS or delete them if there are duplicates in the DOS directory. You need:
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
COMMAND.COM
CONFIG.SYS
AUTOEXEC.BAT
in the root.

It is apparently a Self-extracting ZIPPED file. That being the case, you would at the A Prompt type:
md c:\dos
c:
cd c:\dos
a:\dos622-1.exe
Then place disk 2 in the A drive and type:
a:\dos622-2.exe
Then place disk 3 in the A drive and type:
a:\dos622-3.exe
set path=c:\dos\
a:
sys c:
Now remove the floppy and reboot. You will have to create at least an autoexec.bat file with the line
path=c:\dos\;c:\windows\

And create a C:\CONFIG.SYS file with:
device=c:\dos\himem.sys
shell=c:\command.com /p

I do not know the requirements for Windows 3.0. This may make it work.

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I had bootup disk in floppy and formatted c: then i copied the dos 6.22.exe to c:\ from my a:\ and typed in from c:\ dos622-1.exe [enter] and it did the inflating thing...i proceeded on with #2 and #3 disk

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Nothing here makes the hard drive bootable with DOS 6.22.

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then i put in win3.0 disk #1 in floppy and from a:\ setup and it started to install asking for each disk as it loaded.

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This should only have been done after DOS was installed and the computer boots properly from the hard drive.
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