>I thought there were alternate config.sys and autoexec.bat files that were used if you chose to reboot to MS-DOS mode, and possibly if you hit F8 and chose command line during boot.
Yes, the files you speak of are config.dos and autoexec.dos. These confused me at first because I thought just as you did. I put the driver files in there. However, those files seem to be associated with the PREVIOUS MS-DOS version (if one exists) prior to installation of Windows 98, NOT the CLI of Windows 98 (MS-DOS 7.1). There is an option when starting Windows 98 to boot to an earlier version of MS-DOS. If this earlier version is selected, then config.dos and autoexec.dos are read and processed as config.sys and autoexec.bat for the DOS boot. Otherwise, if booting the Windows 98 (MS-DOS 7.1) CLI, these files are ignored and only autoexec.bat and config.sys (if they exist) are processed. Initially, I thought booting to the previous DOS install (in my case MS-DOS 6.2) would solve the USB problem, and I simply called up the older DOS (MS-DOS 6.2) with the drivers using those *.dos files. However, I was then crippled by only being able to use a USB drive with FAT16 and a small capacity. I needed an MS-DOS 7.1 environment to give me FAT 32 hence the config.sys "menu" system. Terry (Tez) On Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 4:20 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 02/06/2018 12:58 PM, Terry Stewart via cctalk wrote: > >> The title might suggest to topic is not vintage, but the reason I did >> this myself was to facilitate classic computer disk imaging. >> > > I'd think that something from ~20 years ago is indeed vintage. (It's > closer to the 25 year old requirement for cards to be vintage, than not.) > Just not quite as vintage as some of the other topics on cctalk. > > I’ve recently given USB drive capability to the MS-DOS 7.1 environment in >> a Windows 98SE computer I use for the purpose above. It was a bit of work >> configuring the machine to ensure both the MS-DOS drivers and the Windows >> 98SE drivers co-existed peacefully. >> > > Intriguing. > > I figured that such was possible, but I've never tried. > > I'm no Windows 98 guru (or MS-DOS guru for that matter) so it may not be >> the most efficient or elegant of solutions. However, it worked for me. >> That being the case I thought I’d document what I did. >> > > I thought there were alternate config.sys and autoexec.bat files that were > used if you chose to reboot to MS-DOS mode, and possibly if you hit F8 and > chose command line during boot. > > Quick Google searches make me think that the MS-DOS mode files are named > config.dos and autoexec.dos. Then Windows will rename them when you select > reboot into MS-DOS mode. > > Hopefully the article will be useful to others who might want to do this. >> >> http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2018-02-05-USB-in-M >> S-DOS-and-Win98.htm >> > > Thank you for sharing. > > I'm filing that away for future use. > > > > -- > Grant. . . . > unix || die >
