Date:	Wed, 04 Mar 1998 14:47:44 +0100
From:	Matthias Paul <PAUL-MA AT reze-1 DOT rz DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Subject:	Re: Where to start
To:	opendos AT delorie DOT com
Reply-to:	Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de
Message-id:	<9684F951E7@reze-1.rz.rwth-aachen.de>
Organization:	Rechenzentrum RWTH Aachen

On Wed, 04 Mar 1998 Daniel Josef Dekok wrote:

> Will i have to delete/format anything to install opendos? (i know i can 
> delete my old dos directory afterwards) I can't perform any 
> reasonable backups, so im worried about losing everything on my PC :)

Usually everything should work fine (without loosing anything). 

However, since DR-DOS provides more features and allows for better
fine-tuning the system, there might be some caveats for unexperienced
users of MS-DOS who upgrade to DR-DOS (please have a look at the 
backlogs of these mailing lists for details). 

Personally I haven't run the INSTALL/SETUP program for a long time 
now (I usually install OSes manually), so I actually don't know what 
happens if you upgrade from 6.22 to 7.02. In former times, 
INSTALL/SETUP saved the old OS for UNINSTALling the new OS, until you 
said you want to delete the old OS. This should still be true. If you 
are running Windows95, INSTALL will now install LOADER (a multi-boot 
loader) automatically. I don't know, if there is a similar option 
to install LOADER from out of INSTALL when upgrading from DOS 6.22. 

However, if you have a MS-DOS boot floppy and all the MS-DOS files
from the \DOS\ directory saved somewhere, there's nothing to go 
wrong. After installing DR-DOS you'd need to SYS the drive again from 
your MS-DOS 6.22 boot disk, and afterwards install LOADER. You should
than be able to switch between MS-DOS 6.22 and DR-DOS 7.02 at 
boottime, so you can at any time fall back to MS-DOS until your 
DR-DOS configuration is fine-tuned for your purposes making MS-DOS
pretty much obsolete.

Have fun...

Matthias

PS. Despite what I said above, switching OSes is always a good time
    to make a full backup of the system. Resonable backup solutions
    (especially for older and medium-powered systems) are so cheap 
    these days, that noone should ignore them. There's always a first
    time for the big disaster...

--------------------------------------------------------------------
 Matthias Paul, Ubierstrasse 28, D-50321 Bruehl, GERMANY
 eMail: <Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
 Web  : http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 Caldera Digital Research Systems/OpenLinux: http://www.caldera.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------

- Raw text -