MS DOS 6.22/WFW 3.11 and Hard Drive/RAM

  • Thread starter Thread starter Melkor
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Melkor

Can someone help me remember what are the RAM and Hard Drive limitations on
MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11?

I decided to go ahead and used MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11
on my old 300 MHZ system.
I can't find all my old MS-DOS 3 1/2 inch diskettes ( lol and also once upon
a time I have MS-DOS 6.20 or maybe 6.22 on approx 12 360k 5 1/4 inch
floppies) or my old Packard Bell (lol) WFW 3.11 diskettes. So I bought new
copies (so they say... still sealed in plastic) of WFW 3.11 and MS-DOS 6.22
on Ebay.


I cleared off the desk area (lol) and "discovered" enough desk to put
another PS/2 mouse and another PS/2 keyboard on the other side of my desk.


Any hints, tricks, hacks, ect for MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11... especially
for large Hard Drives and RAM?
 
Can someone help me remember what are the RAM and Hard Drive limitations on
MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11?

I decided to go ahead and used MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11
on my old 300 MHZ system.
I can't find all my old MS-DOS 3 1/2 inch diskettes ( lol and also once upon
a time I have MS-DOS 6.20 or maybe 6.22 on approx 12 360k 5 1/4 inch
floppies) or my old Packard Bell (lol) WFW 3.11 diskettes. So I bought new
copies (so they say... still sealed in plastic) of WFW 3.11 and MS-DOS 6.22
on Ebay.


I cleared off the desk area (lol) and "discovered" enough desk to put
another PS/2 mouse and another PS/2 keyboard on the other side of my desk.


Any hints, tricks, hacks, ect for MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11... especially
for large Hard Drives and RAM?
Click to expand...

Look at opendos.org for a modern rewrite of DOS that may work much
better on your middle-aged hardware.
 
Can someone help me remember what are the RAM and Hard Drive limitations on
MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11?

I decided to go ahead and used MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11
on my old 300 MHZ system.
I can't find all my old MS-DOS 3 1/2 inch diskettes ( lol and also once upon
a time I have MS-DOS 6.20 or maybe 6.22 on approx 12 360k 5 1/4 inch
floppies) or my old Packard Bell (lol) WFW 3.11 diskettes. So I bought new
copies (so they say... still sealed in plastic) of WFW 3.11 and MS-DOS 6.22
on Ebay.


I cleared off the desk area (lol) and "discovered" enough desk to put
another PS/2 mouse and another PS/2 keyboard on the other side of my desk.


Any hints, tricks, hacks, ect for MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11... especially
for large Hard Drives and RAM?
Click to expand...


Err, the best tip to give is that everyone upgraded that to Win95
asap, but that a 300MHz box is perfectly capable of Win98SE or
Win2k given enough memory.
 
Melkor said:
Can someone help me remember what are the RAM and Hard Drive limitations
on MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11?
Click to expand...

IIRC max partition size with FAT16 is 2GB. Back in the days of DOS, the main
RAM limitation was cost.
 
Can someone help me remember what are the RAM and Hard Drive limitations on
MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11?
Click to expand...

Hi Melkor,

Using FAT16-formatted drive, you'll be limited to 2 Gb per
partition (i.e., logical drive). Concerning RAM, Win3.1x is
capable to use up to 256 Mb, but you'll have to replace original
memory managers (Himem.sys & Emm386.exe) with newer versions from
MS-DOS v7.1x, also known as Win98... :-)

WBR,
Artur
 
Current RAM modules and harddrive sizes available commercially will NOT work
with those old OS's. You'll have to go someplace like E-bay and try to buy
some used antique hardware.
 
budgie said:
I think you'll find 512 was a BIOS limit. Fat 16 is limited to 2GB.
Click to expand...

FAT 16 has a 4GB limitaion for Volume size and a 2GB limitation on the File
size :-)
 
FAT 16 has a 4GB limitaion for Volume size and a 2GB limitation on the File
size :-)
Click to expand...


Old hardware has boot partition limitations. The boot partition had to
fit in the first 1000 cylinders in the early-mid 90's PC's I worked
with. There were lots of work arounds.
 
-snip-
FAT 16 has a 4GB limitaion for Volume size and a 2GB limitation on the File
size :-)
Click to expand...

No, John - it's 2 Gb, not 4. Volumes greater than 2Gb can be
created with some version of Windows (namely, NT4 and its
successors) by using non-standard formatting scheme, but such a
volume won't be accessible from any other OS, like MS-DOS v6.22
original poster was asked about.

WBR,
Artur
 
Current RAM modules and harddrive sizes available commercially will NOT work
with those old OS's.
Click to expand...

What namely problem do you have with modern RAM module and old
operating system? :-)

Artur
 
FAT 16 has a 4GB limitaion for Volume size and a 2GB limitation on the File
size :-)
Click to expand...

true but AFAIK only NT4 can use a 4gig fat16 volume

dos6x or less will need to use 2 gig volumes...
but with a large drive you can have as many partitions as the alphabet will
allow
 
If I recall correctly DOS6.x will recognize 64 MB memory and disks up to 1024 cylinders, about 8 GB. Despite what many believe, DOS will run on the latest hardware. With newer PCs and fast processors the performance bottleneck will be your disks running in PIO mode (you need Win98 or later for OS DMA support). You can get around this by using an expansion card e.g. Promise ATA100/133 adapter. With these cards DMA is always enable because they emulate SCSI.
Can someone help me remember what are the RAM and Hard Drive limitations on
MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11?

I decided to go ahead and used MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11
on my old 300 MHZ system.
I can't find all my old MS-DOS 3 1/2 inch diskettes ( lol and also once upon
a time I have MS-DOS 6.20 or maybe 6.22 on approx 12 360k 5 1/4 inch
floppies) or my old Packard Bell (lol) WFW 3.11 diskettes. So I bought new
copies (so they say... still sealed in plastic) of WFW 3.11 and MS-DOS 6.22
on Ebay.

I cleared off the desk area (lol) and "discovered" enough desk to put
another PS/2 mouse and another PS/2 keyboard on the other side of my desk.

Any hints, tricks, hacks, ect for MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11... especially
for large Hard Drives and RAM?
Click to expand...

--

When replying by Email include NewSGrouP (case sensitive) in Subject

Mike Walsh
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.
 
Melkor said:
Can someone help me remember what are the RAM and Hard Drive limitations on
MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11?

I decided to go ahead and used MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11
on my old 300 MHZ system.
I can't find all my old MS-DOS 3 1/2 inch diskettes ( lol and also once upon
a time I have MS-DOS 6.20 or maybe 6.22 on approx 12 360k 5 1/4 inch
floppies) or my old Packard Bell (lol) WFW 3.11 diskettes. So I bought new
copies (so they say... still sealed in plastic) of WFW 3.11 and MS-DOS 6.22
on Ebay.

I cleared off the desk area (lol) and "discovered" enough desk to put
another PS/2 mouse and another PS/2 keyboard on the other side of my desk.

Any hints, tricks, hacks, ect for MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11... especially
for large Hard Drives and RAM?
Click to expand...

Well, after all that threading Artur is pretty much the only one who has it
right for your circumstances - FAT16 partitioning and the memory limitations
under Win 3.11

But why don't you fill us in on how much memory you are talking about here and
the size of the hard drive you are planning to use? You could be looking for a
problem that doesn't even exist on this system since you didn't state how large
a hard drive or how much memory you have here.
 
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