Rob;
you need a "bootdisk"
you can download one from www.bootdisk.com
or make one from a win95 computer.
Your 486 should automatically boot from the floppy
when it finds no operating system on the hard drive.
If not, you can change the boot order in bios to boot from the floppy.
Dos and Microsoft Windows are copyrighted software
so you will have a to buy a copy to install on your machine.
I have seen  Dos 6.1 for as low as $20.
If you want to do it on the cheap you can install Linux operating system
 for free, but the learning curve to run Linux is fairly steep:-).

     |
  --|---------------------------
     | ><>  Larry  Fisk   <><
     |      Fisk Computers
     |      Fruitvale, Idaho

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Zirk" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 7:54 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Format problem


>What my question is, is there a download that I can
> put on a 5 1/4 floppy disk which boots up the computer
> and installs DOS, even with nothing on the system?
> And is there something that would let my 5 1/4" drive
> automatically recognize this "boot disk" and
> automatically have it install DOS?

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