adding ms-dos to boot.ini

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steven Wabik
  • Start date Start date
Steven Wabik said:
how do i add ms-dos to boot.ini?
Click to expand...

What types of partitions do you have on your hard disk?
FAT? FAT32? NTFS? Which one is your boot partition?
 
NTFS. y?
will you just tell me how to add ms-dos to boot.ini so that i can boot in
dos.
 
It seems you need to become aware a few of things:
- There are two types of partitions for Microsoft OSs:
FAT and NTFS.
- WinXP can work either with FAT or with NTFS partitions.
- DOS cannot work with NTFS partitions.
- Most PCs have only NTFS partitions.
- Adding a DOS boot line to boot.ini is perfectly useless
unless your boot partition is FAT and has the required
DOS boot files.

To illustrate the point, boot your machine with a Win98 boot
disk from www.bootdisk.com. It gives you a DOS boot
but chances are you won't be able to access the hard disk.
 
i'll just split the partition then. how much MB do you think i should convrt
to FAT so that i can run DOD and word star?
 
i'll just split the partition then. how much MB do you think i should
convrt
to FAT so that i can run DOD and word star?
Click to expand...

What's "DOD"?

I don't know how much disk space Wordstar requires -
better check a Wordstar newsgroup or the Wordstar FAQs.

Before you split your disk, pay attention to a few things:
- Back up your data first. Accidents to happen with partition
managers.
- The FAT partition must be your first and active partition.
- If you wish to retain your existing installation then you
must make sure that its system drive letter remains C:

And lastly . . . installing a multi-boot system in order to
run an unknown DOS-based word processor appears
to be a case of the tail wagging the dog. It's a high-risk
course with questionable benefits.
 
DOS.....i spelled it wrong.....
so how many MB do i need in FAT to run dos?
wordstar is a word processor for dos.....forget about wordstar.
 
DOS6 needs about 6 MBytes. However, you should
get DOS7 (which is the version that ships with Win98).
It can recognise FAT32 partitions. DOS6 can only
deal with FAT16 partitions which (AFAIR) are limited
to 2 GBytes.

If you really insist on doing this then you should create
a FAT/FAT32 partition of not less than 1 GByte.

Furthermore, if you want to be safe rather than sorry,
try the whole thing on an old 2 GByte disk. I'm sure
your computer dealer uses one somewhere as a paper
weight.
 
oh my god! i got wordstar around here somewhere on 360k 5 1/4"floppy(ies,
dont remember how many disks it was), probably your best bet is to forget
about modifying your computer to work wordstar. just put wordstar on a
bootable disk, save to your work to the same disk, etc if you must have this
early 80's program
 
Steven Wabik said:
i'll just split the partition then. how much MB do you think i should convrt
to FAT so that i can run DOD and word star?
Click to expand...

For genuine DOS (e.g. MS-DOS 6.22 which was the last DOS released by
Microsoft as a separate product) you will need to create a FA16
partition. FAT16 partitions cannot exceed 2 gb in size, and work best
if limited to about 500 mb or so.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
Steven said:
i'll just split the partition then. how much MB do you think i should
convrt to FAT so that i can run DOD and word star?
Click to expand...

What evidence do you have that Wordstar - or any other DOS-based program you
have - will NOT run under the XP command interpreter?
 
Steven said:
how do i add ms-dos to boot.ini?
Click to expand...


By having MS-DOS installed on a 2 Gb (or smaller) partition
*before* installing Windows in a dual-boot configuration.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell
 
Ron Martell said:
For genuine DOS (e.g. MS-DOS 6.22 which was the last DOS released by
Microsoft as a separate product) you will need to create a FA16
partition. FAT16 partitions cannot exceed 2 gb in size, and work best
if limited to about 500 mb or so.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Why would that be?
 
Pegasus said:
.... FAT16 partitions cannot exceed 2 gb in size, and work best

Interesting. Why would that be?
Click to expand...


Well, MS-DOS' file system, FAT16, had a maximum supported partition
size of 2048Mb (2Gb), due to the limitations of its addressing
capability. Never heard of any recommended limitation of 500Mb, though.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell
 
my pc does not seem to support formating in fat16. what now?
i have a windows 98 installation CD.
how do i take MSDOS 7 off of it and turn it into a stand alone OS?
 
Steven said:
my pc does not seem to support formating in fat16. what now?
i have a windows 98 installation CD.
how do i take MSDOS 7 off of it and turn it into a stand alone OS?
Click to expand...

I would suggest that instead of repartitioning and reformatting your
hard disk (an error prone operation), you use Virtual PC (a free
download from Microsoft). You can download a Windows 98 (or MS-DOS)
boot disk and use that to create a FAT32 partition inside of Virtual PC.
 
Steven said:
how do i add ms-dos to boot.ini?
Click to expand...

I think that to dual boot DOS 7 (win 98's DOS) with Windows XP, you
want to dual boot Windows 98 with Windows XP.
Then , in windows 98, edit msdos.sys and ensure the line bootgui=0
and not bootgui=1 , and then you could delete your windows directory.

That's a fairly non technical way of doing it. A more tehcnical way
would be to boot off af floppy, do sys c: and copy the files over.

Just try installing windows 98 and then installing windows xp. Windows
XP should see whatever other OSs. . And, I think, since it knows
earlier windows, it should set up boot.ini for you.

Get to that stage. Then if you have problems, ask
I have never doen it before and don't change boot.ini much but I can't
see how it's relevant which partitions are FAT and which are NTFS..
Windows 98 will always be FAT32 - or at least is by default. Windows
XP could be FAT32 or NTFS, but FAT32 with Windows XP (and perhaps NT
generally?) can be risky for a large partition.
 
Pegasus \(MVP\) said:
Interesting. Why would that be?
Click to expand...

Larger cluster sizes and excessive "slack" space on the hard drive
once you get beyond the 500 mb range. Remember, DOS has lots of very
small files so an extra 16K or so of disk space per file can quickly
add up, especially on a small drive. Much more efficient to have two
smaller FAT16 partitions rather than a single 2 gb one.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
Steven said:
i'll just split the partition then. how much MB do you think i should convrt
to FAT so that i can run DOD and word star?
Click to expand...

The last DOS version of WordPerfect - Version 6c - was the pinnacle of
development for DOS based word processors. Hunt around for that instead
of Wordstar. You'll need to eak out the last bits of memory for it's
use because it needed quite a bit.
 
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