[jund1940]

Attempted to upgrade hard drive on IBM DOS system using Norton to create image (from old hard drive to new). The person is running IBM DOS.

A true image was not created. It truncated the file IBM BIO.LDR

Please, can anyone tell me how to "reload" the entire BIO.LDR file on the new hard drive?

Respectfully,

John Underwood, jund1940

[ZeRealBigBoss]

Hello John,

The Norton creates an image, but, as far as I know, that is coupled to the hardware, i.e. the hard disk; so, if you upgrade to a different disk, it won't go because the numbers of sectors and tracks are different.

I would suggest that you connect the new drive as D: and start up on the old one. Then give the command SYS D: ; that copies the system files to D:. Then connect the new drive as C: and the old one as D: and just copy everything over with e.g. xcopy (xcopy /? gives you the options).

All this of course if the format of the disk is FAT32. If not, make a floppy start disk (SYS A and copy fdisk and format over to that one. Then, just to be sure you don't make a mistake and clean out the wrong disk, disconnect the old drive completely and connect the new one as C:, start up the computer on the floppy, run fdisk, reboot and format with FORMAT C: /S /V /U. Then connect the old disk again as D: and copy everything over.

If it is a very big drive, fdisk does not give you the real size because in those times the integers were too small to show the really big sizes of nowadays; don't worry, after formatting you will get the whole disk available. I prepared a 200GB disk with FAT32 in this way.

[ZeRealBigBoss]

Now who put that smiley in SYS A:?? Read SYS A_: without the _

[jund1940]

ZeRealBigBoss,
Thank you for taking the time to be very clear in the process of fixing the drive. It is obvious by your detail you know what you are talking about. It has been a very long time since I worked on IBM DOS stuff, but when I read your note, it brought back a lot of memories - especially the sys command. Without further ado, I commend you and personally say, "Thank you ZeRealBigBoss" for your support and kindness.
Respectfully,
jund1940 (John Underwood)