Re: Hidden DOS files

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Harry Binswanger wrote:
> Although only COMMAND.COM shows, there should also be two hidden .SYS
> files. What were they called again? MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS I think.
Yes, and that has me worried, esp. since Lisa says her tech guy
doesn't know DOS. Because those files are a classic chicken-and-egg
problem. You cannot just copy them from one drive (floppy, CD, thumb,
hard, whatever) to another. Well, you can copy them: I dragged and
dropped them from the floppies to my hard drive. But they have to be
placed in a certain area of the drive they're going to run off. And
that can only be done by the SYS command (which, by the by, is
external; not in command.com). And you have to be booted into DOS to
run SYS. DOS has to be running off a bootable drive before you can
install it. (And I cannot even blame Microsoft for this: Novell's and
IBM's did the same thing.)

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx