Disk Access Outside XP environment

[Chief_Billy]

It's been so long sinceI used DOS, I hate to ask this question:

Can one curtail the XP Pro boot sequence and get into a DOS
environment on todays computers ? I was just wondering if one could
manually, through DOS and not the XP OS, manupiulate files.

 

[mareta]

It's been so long sinceI used DOS, I hate to ask this question:

Can one curtail the XP Pro boot sequence and get into a DOS
environment on todays computers ? I was just wondering if one could
manually, through DOS and not the XP OS, manupiulate files.

XP doesn't run on top of DOS.

Start -> Run -> cmd is a DOS emulator.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

It's been so long sinceI used DOS, I hate to ask this question:

Can one curtail the XP Pro boot sequence and get into a DOS
environment on todays computers ? I was just wondering if one could
manually, through DOS and not the XP OS, manupiulate files.

Not to put too fine a point on it, you don't.

There is no way to reboot a WinXP PC into Real Mode DOS unless
you've set up a dual-boot system. The WinNT family of 32-bit graphical
operating systems, of which WinXP is the latest generation, has never
used, included, or "ridden upon" MS-DOS. The Recovery Console's CLI
(Command Line Interface) is the closest you can come to the old "DOS mode."


--

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

 

[JBrunelle]

There are utilities that run off bootable CDs that allow you to
manipulate files. From these CDs you can run DOS, and most likely and
extended DOS with better support and more tools. Try some bootable CDs
like the ultimate boot CD. Good stuff there. Good luck.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

It's been so long sinceI used DOS, I hate to ask this question:

Can one curtail the XP Pro boot sequence and get into a DOS
environment on todays computers ?

No. There is no MS-DOS underlying XP and no way to do as you suggest. The
only way to get to MS-DOS is not to start Windows XP at all, but to boot
from a DOS diskette.

I was just wondering if one could
manually, through DOS and not the XP OS, manupiulate files.

Even if you were to boot from a DOS diskette, you could probably not do
this. If your hard drive is NTFS (and most Windows XP computers have NTFS
drives) a boot diskette wouldn't be able to see the hard drive anyway
(at least not without special software installed on it).

 

[Tim Slattery]

It's been so long sinceI used DOS, I hate to ask this question:

Can one curtail the XP Pro boot sequence and get into a DOS
environment on todays computers ? I was just wondering if one could
manually, through DOS and not the XP OS, manupiulate files.

There's no DOS in XP. If you can find a DOS boot disk (try
www.bootdisk.com), and if your computer has a floppy disk drive - or
if you make a bootable DOS CD, I suppose - then you can boot into DOS.
If you are using the NTFS file system, you won't be able to see your
hard drives.

 

[DOSlives]

There's no DOS in XP. If you can find a DOS boot disk (try
www.bootdisk.com), and if your computer has a floppy disk drive - or
if you make a bootable DOS CD, I suppose - then you can boot into DOS.
If you are using the NTFS file system, you won't be able to see your
hard drives.

Technically, WinXP _is_ a DOS (Disk Operating System) - of course, so is
Linux, OS/X, Solaris... People like to say there is no DOS in XP
because they feel that an association with the old MS-DOS is a bad thing.
Current versions of Windows have their own kernel and are no longer just
a shell running "on top of" a simpler non-GUI system like Win95/98 were,
but the older MS-DOS influence is still strongly in there (why else is
there an unused B: drive letter on our machines?).

[End rant mode]

To partially answer your question:
You can boot from a DOS floppy or CD (try www.freedos.org), or format a
DOS floppy in WindowsXP and make it bootable by selecting "Create an MS-
DOS startup disk" - puts on the WindowsME version of DOS.
Some DOS or Linux boot floppies/CDs have some (often limited) NTFS file
access support.
You can also use NTFSDOS from www.sysinternals.com under DOS - the free
version allows for file reading, paid version needed to write.
Some versions of Symantec Ghost come with omnifs, which allows access to
NTFS as well as other filesystems from DOS.
Most of these methods of accessing NTFS from DOS are not the same as
native support. Often you do not specify the partition by a drive
letter, and cannot simply use the files as you would in DOS. You can do
some operations such as renaming/copying/deleting files, but to edit file
contents you likely would need to copy the file to a partition that DOS
natively recognizes, edit it, then copy it back.