I suspect you just want "DOS support" for imaging of the PCs though right ?
Otherwise, read on:
HDDs, DOS will not boot if past the 1024th cylinder on the disk, so make it the first primary partition on the HDD if possible. I am not sure on the maximum HDD boundery DOS supports but FAT16 limits you to the first 8 GB of the HDD (via 4 x 2 GB FAT16 volumes).
The monitor will work fine, so long as the video card (BIOS) supports all the modes DOS requires... I would say pretty much 100% of video cards still do.
The SATA HDD should also work under DOS, depending how the hardware (mainboard BIOS) is configured to 'present it' to DOS. Most boards the defaults will actually still work.
DVD support, not sure on with drivers.... Optical media over 4 GB, not sure if MSCDEX can even handle it. Ghost I know can burn to DVD+/-RW directly, but it does it using a low level hardware access and doesn't grant other DOS applications DVD functionality.
CD-ROM support (and burning with Ghost) will work assuming you have IDE drivers (e-mail if you need some, I've got a few) and add them into CONFIG.SYS, then load MSCDEX (via AUTOEXEC.BAT).
Addressing memory above 256 MB (XMS and EMS) won't work if you plan on using Quarterdecks QEMM... if you still have a copy that is. Symantec brought them out and butchered them.
Not sure how far HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE will go though. Not that DOS needs more than 256 MB.
Also the memory range between 640 KB and 1024 KB may be 'crowded' on current age mainboards. If free memory in the 0 - 640 KB range is an issue, and QEMM won't fix it, or you don't have it, and you want to load drivers into UMBs (640-1024 KB) or use EMS / EMM386 (vs XMS) memory then you may find yourself disabling RAID, Network, etc in the BIOS just to free more memory in the UMBs (640-1024 KB) range to cram as many DOS applications into that range as possible.
eg: MSCDEX can use EMS memory (via EMM386) as a buffer for CD-ROM access. SMARTDRV (HDD cache) uses XMS memory (above 1024 KB) so you'll want to load HIMEM.SYS at least. They'll need around 20 - 40 KB of memory under 1024 KB to work.
eg: MOUSE.COM / MOUSE.EXE - Mouse drivers, req around 30 kb, you may want to load them into UMBs to free memory under 640 KB for use by applications.
eg: Network drivers - Don't ask, gets complex.
Note: MSCDEX.EXE = Microsoft CD Extentions (from memory), you'll need it AND the IDE CD-ROM driver to get a driver letter for your DVD/CD-ROM. It may be able to read some DVD's afterwards, but don't count on it.
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That said, yes it does work.
Other options:
Run DOSBox (open source software) or consider running DOS under a virtual machine (that emulates the Intel i440 BX chipset - Thankfully www.VMware.com does this regardless of the real underlying chipset or CPU).
Unless you are doing low level (2D) video interface related stuff (eg: Some DOS games) then a Virtual Machine is the best idea. Check out
http://www.vmware.com .... and even if you are gaming current machines are so fast I don't see the 'faked 2D Video BIOS the VM presents to the OS' being a major issue via a Virtual Machine running DOS.
Getting DOS drivers for your integrated NIC could be an issue... But Broadcom, Yukon / Marvel and Intel NIC drivers should be available, so I would look at one of them for integrated network. Should that be an issue. Hell networking under DOS was a modern miracle almost. Protected Mode OS's made networking heaps more viable.
Depends on your requirements, gaming DOSBox, imaging (e-mail me), or other (post here, or e-mail me).
Upside of VM's is you can run several DOS VM's at once on the same machine using virtual hardware... CONFIG.SYS drivers is where your 'research' would be best invested IMHO.
Contact details via:
http://users.on.net/~darkpeace
I am one of the few remaining people on the planet that appreciate what DOS did for us... and still retain much of my PC DOS / MS-DOS / and others / Aswell as OS/2 2.xx / Win 3.15 (and earlier) knowledge.
If a Protected Mode native DOS existed, (low overheads) I may have used it often.... and ditto for a x64 native DOS... (if they had a few extra features, like 4096 char path support) Single Tasking, even without a fancy GUI, does have its uses even today... (eg: BluRay) but multi-tasking is where it is at.
What exactly are you trying to do that requires DOS anyway ?
There is a FreeDOS project around, and they want 32 bit Protected Mode support, but I don't see it taking off any time soon, and the potential risks to using it (vs PC DOS or MS-DOS) are too great IMHO.
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PS: I am surprised at how much I remember about DOS (and optimizing DOS) off the top of my head. Still got all my MS-DOS and (IBM) PC DOS books aswell.
DOS networking is my weakest (DOS) point, but I could still get it working given the documentation and access to drivers.
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