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I'm looking for an Operating System that will only use up under 10mb and has the ability to format without backing up files and de-partition hard-drives.
I need one to fix up an old computer with, and run on the computer.
The computer is an old IBM PS/2 model 50 with just the standard equipment, a black and white monitor and no mouse.

it's called "DOS", or really any other OS could fit that description, even a linux floppy might fit the bill, but a DOS boot disk with fdisk/format should work.

BTW, this is an OS development board, not a search your toy OS board.

proxy wrote: it's called "DOS", or really any other OS could fit that description, even a linux floppy might fit the bill, but a DOS boot disk with fdisk/format should work.

BTW, this is an OS development board, not a search your toy OS board.

I'm using MS-Dos 6 and it won't let me format without backing up and I think the f-disk is defective, it worked once, but now it just says I have no fixed disk.

you can format without backing up, i've done it in DOS 6. This is a thread unrelated to OS dev and I suggest to moderators that it get's locked or deleted.

proxy

proxy wrote: you can format without backing up, i've done it in DOS 6. This is a thread unrelated to OS dev and I suggest to moderators that it get's locked or deleted.

proxy

Look Proxy it might say I'm a n00b but I've been on this Forum for over a year now, and this part of the forum as always offered Operating System AID so I suggest you just back off a bit, and if no-one helps that's fine I'll just try some other board.

http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/

That's a Linux based recovery floppy. I prefer this one over tomsrtbt, but you might think differently (Google is your friend if you do). All the tools required for partitioning are available (cfdisk /dev/hda is most likely what you're looking for ).

Hope that helps.

http://www.ranish.com/part/ offers a tool that - installed on a DOS boot disk - should fit all your formatting / partitioning needs in a comfortable yet detailed way.

The only things it cannot do is loss-less shrinking of partitions, and BSD-style slices.

FreeDOS?

bubach wrote: FreeDOS?

Pretty good idea, actually
Why don't get he himself freedos ?
It has fdisk, format and it runs in real mode, which means that it works on an IBM PS/2 computer

Thanks for the help.
I'll try some of these options and then reply with whether they worked or not.
Till then keep replying with help!

Curufir I downloaded RIP-2.9-1440.bin
Is this the file you were talking about?

Remember:it has to be able to fit on a Floppy disk.

OS-Bones wrote: Curufir I downloaded RIP-2.9-1440.bin
Is this the file you were talking about?

Remember:it has to be able to fit on a Floppy disk.

Yup, that's the one as far as I remember.

Whack it on a 1.44 floppy (WinImage, Partcopy, Rawrite...choose your poison) and boot off the floppy.

its too big retry/browse/cancel?

Ahh.

For some reason the 10mb requirement just never entered my consciousness and RIP loads everything onto a ramdisk (Just checked and it uses around 16mb ). I'm assuming here you had no problems getting it on the disk, because it definitely goes on a 1.44Mb floppy (I've just done it).

Right now I'd advise the FreeDOS option the others have suggested.

However if you enjoy playing around you could try http://nuieee.fe.up.pt/~ee97034/la/asmutils.html which is a v v v small linux with a footprint of around 4mb (I like keeping this one around because the whole userland is assembly apps ). Got no idea if it would work on your machine though.

are there any other options available?

I'm going to give both a try but I'm still looking for other options.