C
cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)
On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 00:16:59 +0100, "John Barnett MVP"
That's the easiest. Other ways are possible as long as you know what
you are doing and understand what you are dealing with.
Visualize this:
BIOS boot device selection-------------
| Active boot partition--------------
| | NTLDR Boot.ini---------------
| | | XP installation
| | | Recovery Console
| | | DOS Mode (if FATxx)
| | |---------------------------------------
| Other normally-hidden bootable partitions
| | Windows 9x
| | Linux
| |---------------------------------------------
| Other bootable devices
|-----------------------------------------------
Other computers
Firstly: Win9x cannot work with HDs over 137G in size.
If your XP is installed on an NTFS C:, then you have to outside of the
NTLDR / Boot.ini axis to load your DOS mode or Win9x, because these
can not run on NTFS. My approach would be:
1) Get a 3rd-party boot manager e.g. www.bootitng.com (BING)
2) Make an image backup of your C: to another HD
3) Install BING to your hard drive *
4) Shrink C: to make space for another partition **
5) Create a new FAT32 partition for Win9x
6) Hide the existing C: and set new partition as active
7) Install Win9x on the new partition
8) Use BING boot menu to select which partition to boot
* possible and ** more possible risks of things going wrong and
trashing C:, that's why I consider step (2) to be non-optional
While any partition restore, resize etc. is in progress, do not plug
in electrical equipment for fear of tripping the power. Interrupting
these processes WILL hurt, i.e. trash your partition!
If you need DOS mode only, *and* your C: is FATxx, then you do not
need a separate partition for it, as you would for Win9x GUI (XP and
Win9x GUI share the same "Program Files"). My approach would be:
1) Have the skills required to do safe raw sector editing
2) Backup the partition boot sector for C: (Sector 0 only)
3) Boot A: diskette of the DOS mode version you want, with Sys on it
4) Sys C:
5) Backup the new partition boot sector for C: (Sector 0 only)
6) Save (5) as a 512-byte file called C:\BOOTSECT.DOS
7) Restore (2) back to the partition boot sector
8) Add new OS line to Boot.ini : C:\="Maintenance DOS Mode"
9) Copy the rest of DOS mode to C:\DOSMode
A) Set up Path info in C:\MSDOS.SYS and C:\CONFIG.SYS etc.
B) Set XP not to process Autoexec.bat
C) Set up C:\Autoexec.bat to taste (for the DOS mode)
D) Set Boot.ini display time to taste
If you are unfamiliar with editing boot sectors, or have doubts about
the automation tools you find to handle this, then quit now.
Clickfood:
http://cquirke.mvps.org/multplan.htm
http://cquirke.mvps.org/multboot.htm
http://cquirke.mvps.org/multos.htm
HTH
That's the easiest. Other ways are possible as long as you know what
you are doing and understand what you are dealing with.
Visualize this:
BIOS boot device selection-------------
| Active boot partition--------------
| | NTLDR Boot.ini---------------
| | | XP installation
| | | Recovery Console
| | | DOS Mode (if FATxx)
| | |---------------------------------------
| Other normally-hidden bootable partitions
| | Windows 9x
| | Linux
| |---------------------------------------------
| Other bootable devices
|-----------------------------------------------
Other computers
Firstly: Win9x cannot work with HDs over 137G in size.
If your XP is installed on an NTFS C:, then you have to outside of the
NTLDR / Boot.ini axis to load your DOS mode or Win9x, because these
can not run on NTFS. My approach would be:
1) Get a 3rd-party boot manager e.g. www.bootitng.com (BING)
2) Make an image backup of your C: to another HD
3) Install BING to your hard drive *
4) Shrink C: to make space for another partition **
5) Create a new FAT32 partition for Win9x
6) Hide the existing C: and set new partition as active
7) Install Win9x on the new partition
8) Use BING boot menu to select which partition to boot
* possible and ** more possible risks of things going wrong and
trashing C:, that's why I consider step (2) to be non-optional
While any partition restore, resize etc. is in progress, do not plug
in electrical equipment for fear of tripping the power. Interrupting
these processes WILL hurt, i.e. trash your partition!
If you need DOS mode only, *and* your C: is FATxx, then you do not
need a separate partition for it, as you would for Win9x GUI (XP and
Win9x GUI share the same "Program Files"). My approach would be:
1) Have the skills required to do safe raw sector editing
2) Backup the partition boot sector for C: (Sector 0 only)
3) Boot A: diskette of the DOS mode version you want, with Sys on it
4) Sys C:
5) Backup the new partition boot sector for C: (Sector 0 only)
6) Save (5) as a 512-byte file called C:\BOOTSECT.DOS
7) Restore (2) back to the partition boot sector
8) Add new OS line to Boot.ini : C:\="Maintenance DOS Mode"
9) Copy the rest of DOS mode to C:\DOSMode
A) Set up Path info in C:\MSDOS.SYS and C:\CONFIG.SYS etc.
B) Set XP not to process Autoexec.bat
C) Set up C:\Autoexec.bat to taste (for the DOS mode)
D) Set Boot.ini display time to taste
If you are unfamiliar with editing boot sectors, or have doubts about
the automation tools you find to handle this, then quit now.
Clickfood:
http://cquirke.mvps.org/multplan.htm
http://cquirke.mvps.org/multboot.htm
http://cquirke.mvps.org/multos.htm
HTH
Gone to bloggery: http://cquirke.blogspot.com