Need a 5 1/4 DOS Disk - Where Can I Get One?

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My dad uses an old Leading Edge computer with 2 floppy drives, and he damaged his 5 1/4 DOS disk. He is devastated because without the DOS disk, you cannot boot up the computer. He loves using this computer. None of my friends have 5 1/4 computer stuff anymore, and I can't find a store that still sells it. Where can I get one now? Any suggestions? Does anyone have one gathering dust?

Please don't suggest that he buy a new computer. He has a new computer with Word, but he likes the word processing better on the Leading Edge.



eBay has several 5.25 version of DOS if you search for DOS floppy. As long as you don't need a proprietary one. But that won't include a word processor other than edit, unless it has one in ROM memory or he has another disk with a word processor.



pc (217.24kB)
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jolma said: eBay has several 5.25 version of DOS if you search for DOS floppy. As long as you don't need a proprietary one. But that won't include a word processor other than edit, unless it has one in ROM memory or he has another disk with a word processor.All the software seems available http://www.google.com/search?q=Leading+Edge+computer&sourceid=ie... If the PC has a serial or parallel interfaces maight consider an USB adapter.


Can you switch his computer to 3.5" floppies? If you cover the second hole in a 1.44M disk with opaque tape, it becomes low density, and then it can be treated as a 360K disk in BIOS setup.


If the system has a high density floppy drive + hard drive, then finding DOS is fairly easy as there are even free alternatives. On the other hand if that machine has only low density floppy drives + no hard disk, you most likely require DOS 3.x on 5.25" 360k floppies. Other than eBay, you might also try various forsale forums like Craigslist, Anandtech, or Arstechnica.


Thank you for the suggestions. I will check into each of them. If you have any others, please let me know.


Have you looked into installing his Leading Edge word processor on his new computer?


How about using a DOS simulator or virtual machine instead?


If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: BACKUP!


jolma said: But that won't include a word processor other than edit

edit was a relatively late addition to MS-DOS. Prior to version 5.0 of the OS, you got edlin.
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Michael




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