Creating MS DOS boot disk for DOS Game

[A31Chris]

Remember your floppy has to be bootable !

From the command line with a empty formatted disk in the drive, type:
sys a: then press enter.

Are you sure? These instructions seem to read that the way they have you setup the DOS shortcut in Windows 95 replaces the BOOT Disk.

[A31Chris]

From the 'Editing The Game Shortcut Icon' instructions.

Step 6 is where I am getting the impression that the DOS shortcut itself in Windows 95 replaces the actual boot disk but I could be misreading it.

Left click in the circle next to Specify a new MS-DOS configuration. Make sure there is a dot in this circle.
Two windows open up -- one labeled CONFIG.SYS for MS_DOS mode and one labeled AUTOEXEC.BAT for MS-DOS mode. These are the two windows in which you will create a "boot disk" that runs the game directly in DOS.

The text in these windows is a copy of a Windows 95 boot. You will be replacing this with the text you would normally use to make a boot disk. Modifying or deleting this text has no effect on the files your system normally uses to boot up.

[A31Chris]

Here is what I got for Config.sys. I do not have a DOS folder on my root drive.
My config.sys is shaping up like this so far:

DEVICE=C:\windows\HIMEN.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=40
BUFFERS=99
SHELL=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM C:\WINDOWS /P
devicehigh=c:\mtmcdai.sys /d:123

autoexec.bat

PROMPT $P$G
PATH=C:\windows\command.com;c:\;c:\windows;
SET COMSPEC=C:\Windows\COMMAND.COM
C:\MOUSE\MOUSE.COM
ih C:\windows\command\MSCDEX.EXE

I've run into a snag. I have no DOS mouse drivers.Searching for mouse.sys and/or mouse.com produces nothing on my system and I'm having hard time finding them online.

[A31Chris]

ok I found ctmouse. I'll try creating the directory mouse/ and then change that line to point to the executable.

[A31Chris]

ok I run the shortcut and I get:

missing/corrupted c:\windows\himem.sys( I checked, Himem.sys is in that directory.)

error config line 2

missing/corrupted c:\mtmcdai.sys(cannot find this file on my hard drive)

error config.sys line 8

bad command or file errors x2

invalid drive spec(probably from it not being able to find mtmcdai earlier)

bad command or file name (I'm assuming this is the WC3 executable from the CD its squawking about. Would make sense if it cant find mtmcdai)

taking a break i'll work on this more next week.

[A31Chris]

autoexec.bat

PROMPT $P$G
PATH=C:\windows\command.com;c:\;c:\windows;
SET COMSPEC=C:\Windows\COMMAND.COM
C:\CTMOUSE19\CTMOUSE.COM
ih C:\windows\command\MSCDEX.EXE /M:5 /L:F
E:
WC3

config.sys

DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEN.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=40
BUFFERS=99
SHELL=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM C:\WINDOWS /P
devicehigh=c:\mtmcdai.sys /d:123

[A31Chris]

wait config.sys doesnt have a line 8

[A31Chris]

ok guys I've double checked on this. I'd like to finish this up if anyone is brave enough to tackle this with me. I've re run it I'm getting the same errors. Not sure what I need to do now. Neither config.sys or autoexec.bat file have a line eight. I'm not sure where that is coming from.

[A31Chris]

I booted up from a Windows 98se boot disk and it booted up fine. I followed the insructions on this page to recopy Himem.sys

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000425.htm

but am STILL getting this error. Have double checked the line in the config and its correct.

I will come back to this. For the time being I'll tackle the MTMCDAI problem.

[A31Chris]

Just did a step by step boot confirmation. Here is the info I've gotten from it:

HIMEM>SYS
Error config.sys line 2

MTMCDAI.SYS
Error line 8

C:\CTMOUSE19\CTMOUSE>COM
Bad command or file name

ih C:\Windows\command\mscdex.exe /m:5 /L:F
Bad command or filename

E:
Invalid drive spec.

Oddly enough the line- DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS boots ok?

I will double check the CTMOUSE directory make sure it is where its pointing to.

[A31Chris]

I had ctmouse.com instead of ctmouse.exe have changed that. That will probably squish that error.

[Train]

Copy the HIMEM>SYS from the bootdisk and use it to replace the one giving the error.

Change the /m:5 to say /M:8

And may have the wrong driver or wrong entery for the driver in one of two places.
This line is the name of the CD-ROM driver on the particular system we are working on. The /D:123 represents the name of the driver, which in this case is named 123, however, can be named anything, usually MSCD0001. Note, however, that /D:123 must be exactly the same in config.sys and autoexec.bat; if they are different, the CD-ROM will not work in DOS.

[A31Chris]

I have mscdex.exe. Should I rem out the devicehigh=c:\mtmcdai.sys /d:123 ?

[A31Chris]

Copy the HIMEM>SYS from the bootdisk and use it to replace the one giving the error.

I did that. For some reason its still barfing the error out at me. Though it boots fine from the 98se bootdisk.

[Train]

d:123 tells the actual name of the driver.

So look on the config.sys on the bootdisk and use the same line and referenced driver.