Booting DOS from SATA drive fails?

[Agapanthus]

I have a P5GD2 Deluxe with DVD drives on the primary IDE connector and
two hard drives on SATA1 and SATA 2 (or SATA3). XP is installed and
running on the SATA1 drive, and I plan to put Linux on the other drive.
However, XP is being very awkward about some old DOS software, so I
decided to put a small DOS partition on the second drive so as to boot
into MS-DOS 6.22 via the onboard boot selection feature (f8).

I installed DOS on the SATA drive from floppy no problem, but when I try
to boot from the hard disk the machine stops (black screen with the
character á halfway down the righthand side). If I boot from a floppy I
can switch to the hard drive, so DOS is able to read the drive - but why
won’t it boot?

Setting the IDE Operate Mode to "compatible" in the BIOS does not solve
the problem, and in Compatible Mode the SATA drives are only recognised
when I select "S-ATA only" (my understanding is that I should also be
able to see them when I select "P-ATA + S-ATA" if I use SATA1 and
SATA3).

I am hoping that there is some simple answer to this (perhaps to do with
how DOS uses the MBR and with SATA architecture?) so I have not yet
started updating my BIOS etc. On the other hand, hours of googling
haven’t produced an answer yet...

So if anyone has a constructive lead I would be very grateful!

 

[DaveW]

In order to boot into a DOS partition on an SATA drive you would need to
have a DOS-based SATA driver linstalled into the DOS partition. I have
never heard that such a thing exists.

 

[Agapanthus]

In order to boot into a DOS partition on an SATA drive you would need to
have a DOS-based SATA driver linstalled into the DOS partition. I have
never heard that such a thing exists.

Thanks Dave!

In a German newsgroup I've been told I should be okay with DOS 7.x and
up (because that supports BIOS extension) ... but that I won't be able
to boot from the second drive except with XP or Linux. What worries me
more is that the writer suggests that if I've already tried to install
6.22 I will have to erase the MBR(?)!

Looks like I might try using a DOSBox instead ...

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

I
decided to put a small DOS partition on the second drive so as to boot
into MS-DOS 6.22 via the onboard boot selection feature (f8).

I installed DOS on the SATA drive from floppy no problem, but when I try
to boot from the hard disk the machine stops (black screen with the
character á halfway down the righthand side). If I boot from a floppy I
can switch to the hard drive, so DOS is able to read the drive - but why
won’t it boot?

SATA drives are software-compatible with PATA drives, so you don't need
a "SATA DOS driver" as someone else suggested.

When you created the DOS partition on drive#2, did you make it active?

 

[Agapanthus]

SATA drives are software-compatible with PATA drives, so you don't need
a "SATA DOS driver" as someone else suggested.

When you created the DOS partition on drive#2, did you make it active?

Yes. The first time round I created a FAT16 partition in XP (and made it
active) before installing DOS. When that didn't work I deleted the
primary partition and let DOS create its own primary partition on the
drive and format it before installing the OS.

Either way DOS was able to read the drive once it had been booted from
the floppy, but the OS would not boot from the hard drive.

 

[MAd MAx]

Needs to be "Primary" AND "active". Use Partition Magic 8 at least if the
disk is more than 40 Go.

SATA must be chosen as first bootable device in the BIOS Setup of the PC.

What do you mean by 'second drive' ?

 

[Nickeldome]

Yes. The first time round I created a FAT16 partition in XP (and made it
active) before installing DOS. When that didn't work I deleted the
primary partition and let DOS create its own primary partition on the
drive and format it before installing the OS.

Either way DOS was able to read the drive once it had been booted from
the floppy, but the OS would not boot from the hard drive.

The systemfiles must be on partition C: and C: must be on your first drive.
And C: must be FAT16. You can not boot DOS from another partition/drive.

Nickeldome

 

[Agapanthus]

The systemfiles must be on partition C: and C: must be on your first drive.
And C: must be FAT16. You can not boot DOS from another partition/drive.

To narrow down the problem I totally disconnected the "first" hard disk
(with XP on it) and hooked up the "second" disk (on which I wanted to
install DOS) as SATA_1. The IDE drives are ignored when BIOS is set to
compatible mode. So the BIOS "sees" and reports only my SATA drive as
its first hard disk (primary IDE).

I then try installing DOS on this drive ... and it doesn't work (as
explained in my original post). This is true both when DOS partitions
and formats the drive by itself (which it does not seem to have problems
doing) and when the drive has already been partitioned and formatted by
XP.

Maybe the mobo is not "tricking" the OS into thinking it is dealing with
normal IDE drives, despite being in "compatible mode". This is why I
posted the ASUS motherboard group.

Alternatively, it may be something fundamental to do with DOS. That
depends on how control is handed over from the BIOS to the OS during
boot - since DOS seems to run on the drive, it's only the booting that
is causing the trouble. However, my knowledge of OS booting is also
pretty much non-existent. (One person has suggested that DOS 7.x (Win98
etc.) might work because it supports extended BIOS functions?)

Basically I would like to know if I can (theoretically) install DOS 6.22
on a SATA drive on this motherboard. If so: how? If not: why not?

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

To narrow down the problem I totally disconnected the "first" hard disk
(with XP on it) and hooked up the "second" disk (on which I wanted to
install DOS) as SATA_1. The IDE drives are ignored when BIOS is set to
compatible mode. So the BIOS "sees" and reports only my SATA drive as
its first hard disk (primary IDE).

I then try installing DOS on this drive ... and it doesn't work (as
explained in my original post). This is true both when DOS partitions
and formats the drive by itself (which it does not seem to have problems
doing) and when the drive has already been partitioned and formatted by
XP.

1) is the DOS partition *active*? fdisk will tell you. If not, it will
not boot. Merely putting the system files (io.sys and msdos.sys) on the
partition is not enough.

If it is active, as a last resort try "fdisk /mbr" from a DOS boot
floppy. This will return to the command line without indicating it's
done anything. It re-writes the boot sector.

The above needs to be done with the drive configured as the primary
drive (i.e. how you've described it in your first paragraph above.)