Valeria said:
I have a portable computer with XP HE installed that I need to install a DOS based program. The program does not work in a DOS prompt. I have to make a dual boot. The recommendation from Microsoft is that I should install DOS first and then XP. I already have XP installed, and a disk partitioned in c: and d:. My question is: is it enough to formatt partition d: and formatt it to FAT to be able to install DOS in that disk, or will there be other problems? I would like to avoid formatting the whole thing and having to reinstall all my programs again.
You will really need some external boot manager to handle the matter,
unless you are prepared to do it by booting a floppy at each occasion
you want to access the other partition, so as to swap over the 'active
partition setting. And if that would be OK, you might just as well boot
a DOS mode floppy and be done with it, using your FAT partition simply
for the data and DOS programs. That is what I would do - use a Win98
startup floppy, ideally the kind which can be made on any machine not
running XP, by running the program tools\mtsutil\fat32ebd\fat32ebd.exe
on the Win98 CD. If the machine does not have a floppy drive, use the
floppy as 'image' in burning a bootable CD with a program like Nero
If you do use a Boot Manager, then you may have Boot Magic along with
Partition Magic, or I use BootIT NG, from
http://www.BootitNG.com ($35
shareware - 30 day full functional trial)
