1. ‘No ROM Basic’ Error
When a partition is not set to the bootable partition. This usually occurs when the drive at one time was a slave and now has moved into the primary position. Verify that the hard drive has an “Active/Primary” DOS partition. This can be accomplished with the DOS FDISK utility. Boot your system with DOS system diskette, type “FDISK/MBR” and press [Enter].
Note: All data could be lost when performing this command.
2. ‘Not Enough Drive Letters’ Error
After adding a new device such as a hard drive or CD-ROM drive the system reports an error saying: “Not enough drive letters” or “Not enough drive letters available”
This issue is caused by the “LASTDRIVE” line not setup properly or defined in the config.sys file.
Solution:
You must edit your CONFIG.SYS file. This file is located in the root directory of your hard drive.
- From a DOS prompt, C:\, type the command edit config.sys.
- Once in the editor, either change the LASTDRIVE=line or add a LASTDRIVE statement greater than the amount of drive letters.
For example the line could be: LASTDRIVE=Z - Make sure to save and exit.
- Reboot and the problem should be resolved.
3. ‘Bad or Missing Command Interpreter’ Error
DOS does not start because it cannot find the command interpreter (COMMAND.COM). If this message appears during start-up, either:
- The COMMAND.COM is not on the hard drive.
- A COMMAND.COM from a previous DOS version is resident on the disk.
- A conflict exists between IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS files.
To resolve this:
- With DOS 6.0 a user can override the CONFIG.SYS by pressing either the F8 or F5 function keys during boot. This solution only works if the correct COMMAND.COM is in the root directory.
- Reboot system with System Boot Diskette. After booting to the A: prompt, type “SYS C:” and press [Enter]. This will transfer the system files back to the hard drive.