Booting to MS-Dos in Windows XP Pro!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joshua Miller
  • Start date Start date
In My Computer if you right click on the floppy drive and goto format, you
can tell it to "copy boot files"

NOTE: If your had drive is formatted in NTFS a DOS bootdisk will not do you
a lot of good for most things.
 
You can't boot to DOS with XP Pro. It was only available in Windows 9x.

I want to try installing DOS, then installing XP to see if I can multi-boot,
but have yet to test that.

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley
 
See
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/getting
started/multiboot.asp
and
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/getting
started/meandxp.asp

A couple of cautions - it is REALLY REALLY true that you
should install the oldest OS first, then the newer one.
If you have a retail copy of XP, you should be able to
reinstall. If you have an OEM copy (installed by the
computer manufacturer / vendor), it might be better to
forget this idea.

Also, before you even considering reinstalling -
especially if you must change the format type to FAT16
and/or create a new partition - BE SURE TO BACK UP ALL
YOUR DATA!!!!!!!!!!

Second, DOS needs to be installed in its own partition
(subsection of a hard drive or separate hard drive),
which must be formatted as FAT16 (also known as FAT). XP
generally uses the more efficient, higher security NTFS
format. You may also see FAT32 - more efficient than
FAT16, poor security, usable by Win95 and Win98.

Finally, have you tried XP's compatibility mode, which
offers to let you run DOS programs in a simulated DOS
environment. (I have to say that the one time I tried
compatibility mode it failed miserably, so this may not
solve your problem.)
 
I want to boot to a command prompt!!

A:\>



Hi

You can't. Why do you want to boot to DOS?

Will
 
Hi, Joshua.

With an unformatted diskette in the floppy drive, right-click on Drive A: in
My Computer, then click Format. Check Create an MS-DOS startup disk, then
Start.

Set your BIOS to boot from floppy, then reboot. But understand that this
puts you into true MS-DOS (Millennium version), with no connection at all
the WinXP. Win9x/ME and earlier versions of Windows built on the MS-DOS
platform; WinNT/2K/XP do not use MS-DOS at all.

I did this just yesterday to flash a new BIOS onto my motherboard.

But, as Chris Lanier said, you can't access NTFS volumes from here, so it
might not do you much good in WinXP. If you tell us why you need MS-DOS
(rather than the Command Prompt in the "DOS" window in WinXP), we might be
able to give you better advice. The "DOS" window only emulates MS-DOS, but
in many ways, it is "a better DOS than DOS".

RC
 
In
Joshua Miller said:
I need to boot to MSDOS! How do I do that in windows XP
pro?? Thanks!!


You don't. There is no DOS in XP.

Your only option, short of dual-booting, is to boot from a DOS diskette. And note that if your hard drive is NTFS, the DOS diskette won't be able to see it (at least not without special software).
 
| I want to boot to a command prompt!!
|
| A:\>

Depending on what you want to do using the command prompt, you could:

- Go to Start > Run and input cmd.exe to get XP's DOS emulation command
prompt (not really DOS)
- Boot with a Win9x startup diskette for real DOS (but it can't read NTFS). If
you don't have a Win9x diskette, you can download the files for one here:
http://www.bootdisk.com
- Boot from the XP CD and select Recovery Console. That will get you an XP DOS
emulation window outside Windows (it can read and work with NTFS)

Repair Console supports relatively few commands. Go to Start > Help and Support
and input Recovery Console and look at Recovery Console Commands to get a
list. The Command Prompt Window supports more. Input help to get a
complete list.

Larc



§§§ - Please raise temperature of mail to reply by e-mail - §§§
 
Actually, that's not correct. Booting with a DOS boot diskette will bring
you to an A:\ prompt, but DOS is not installed. You will only be able to run
the executables on your diskette.

Mike Mulligan
 
In
Mike Mulligan said:
Actually, that's not correct. Booting with a DOS boot diskette will
bring you to an A:\ prompt, but DOS is not installed.


Sure it's correct. DOS is not installed in the sense of residing on the hard drive, but DOS *is* running. Plato didn't say any more than that. He certainly didn't say anything about installing DOS.

You will only
be able to run the executables on your diskette.


No, that's not correct. If there is a hard drive partition that's FAT16, DOS programs on that partition can be accessed and run. If there's a hard drive partition that's FAT32 and a FAT32-compatible version of DOS is on the diskette, DOS programs on that partition can be accessed and run.

The only executables on the hard drive that can't be run are those that are on a partition with a file system unsupported by the version of DOS on the diskette, and those executables that are Windows-based.

Also note that you can run executables on any DOS diskette, not just the one you booted from.
 
"If there's a hard drive partition that's FAT32 and a FAT32-compatible
version of DOS is on the diskette, DOS programs on that partition can be
accessed and run."

What DOS programs are installed on the hard disk of an XP computer?

Mike Mulligan

In
Mike Mulligan said:
Actually, that's not correct. Booting with a DOS boot diskette will
bring you to an A:\ prompt, but DOS is not installed.


Sure it's correct. DOS is not installed in the sense of residing on the hard
drive, but DOS *is* running. Plato didn't say any more than that. He
certainly didn't say anything about installing DOS.

You will only
be able to run the executables on your diskette.


No, that's not correct. If there is a hard drive partition that's FAT16, DOS
programs on that partition can be accessed and run. If there's a hard drive
partition that's FAT32 and a FAT32-compatible version of DOS is on the
diskette, DOS programs on that partition can be accessed and run.

The only executables on the hard drive that can't be run are those that are
on a partition with a file system unsupported by the version of DOS on the
diskette, and those executables that are Windows-based.

Also note that you can run executables on any DOS diskette, not just the one
you booted from.
 
"What DOS programs are installed on the hard disk of an XP computer?"

Ones that are insalled by the end user on that partition. I don't think
anyone is trying to say that XP itself has programs that can be run from
dos.

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley
 
Mike Mulligan said:
Actually, that's not correct. Booting with a DOS boot diskette will bring
you to an A:\ prompt, but DOS is not installed. You will only be able to run
the executables on your diskette.

That's not exactly true, I run executables from the HDD almost daily by
booting to the A:\> prompt. Of course the HDD is FAT32.
 
In
Mike Brearley said:
"What DOS programs are installed on the hard disk of an XP computer?"

Ones that are insalled by the end user on that partition. I don't
think anyone is trying to say that XP itself has programs that can be
run from dos.


Yes, what you say is of course what I meant. But thinking about it, I don't know for sure, but it's likely that XP programs like ipconfig.exe *would* run if you booted to a DOS diskette. As a matter of fact, looking in \Windows\System32, I see a lot of old DOS programs, such as edlin, that would probably run if you booted from a DOS diskette.
 
Mike said:
Actually, that's not correct. Booting with a DOS boot diskette will bring
you to an A:\ prompt, but DOS is not installed. You will only be able to run
the executables on your diskette.

Nope, once dos loads you can run dos apps off other floppies. Or off
your c: drive if its in fat32/16.
 
Back
Top