non Vista question - but urgent!!

[Kevin Oye]

Does anyone know how to get the DOS prompt before it kicks into windows? I
have an older PC and I am giving it to a buddy of mine. I have Win 2000 on
it and it just freezes on me. If I could get the prompt before this happens
I can format the hard drive and then I will be set.

TIA

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

http://bootdisk.com

--


Mark L. Ferguson

..

 

[On the Bridge!]

There is no DOS in windows NT, 2k, XP and Vista.

You can boot into save mode with command prompt by pressing f8 after the
bios and before windows start loading.. but thats NOT what you need.

What you need is to boot the PC with the windows DISK (cd or dvd) and from
there
you can format the drives

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Kevin Oye" <[email protected]>

| Does anyone know how to get the DOS prompt before it kicks into windows? I
| have an older PC and I am giving it to a buddy of mine. I have Win 2000 on
| it and it just freezes on me. If I could get the prompt before this happens
| I can format the hard drive and then I will be set.
|
| TIA
|

news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.win2000.general

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Mark L. Ferguson" <[email protected]>

| http://bootdisk.com
|

GNU FreeDOS
http://www.freedos.org/

I don't think Plato gives DOS disk imgaes for free any longer.

 

[Guest]

If You Are Giving The Computer Away, Than I Strongly Recommend That You Zero
Out The Hard Disk Drive, Rather Than Just Re-Formatting It, Just FYI.

 

[Guest]

That Is Not Good Advice Either, What He Really Needs 2 Do Is Zero Out The
Hard Disk Drive Before He Gives The Computer Away 2 Some One Else (Even If
It's A Friend), Just FYI.

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: <[email protected]>

| That Is Not Good Advice Either, What He Really Needs 2 Do Is Zero Out The
| Hard Disk Drive Before He Gives The Computer Away 2 Some One Else (Even If
| It's A Friend), Just FYI.

Unless this PC has company proprietary information, it doesn't need to be sanitized.
Just remove the partition and reformat. However a full format, not a quick format is
better.

 

[Spanky deMonkey]

Hey Kevin,

I am going to try my best to be good. I won't use the other account any
more so there won't be any confusion between you and me.

Have a good evening.

Spanky

If You Are Giving The Computer Away, Than I Strongly Recommend That You
Zero Out The Hard Disk Drive, Rather Than Just Re-Formatting It, Just FYI.

 

[Spanky deMonkey]

I got a new machine. A Mac Pro and it's really cool. Going to use it for
Video editing and I purchased a program called VMWare Fusion. This allows
to create virtual machines on the MAC to run Windows. I set up a Vista VM
and I'm setting up an XP VM. Since the machine has an Intel processor, it
works very well. I can run my Mac applications, and have a Vista window and
an XP window open at the same time.

Very cool.

If You Are Giving The Computer Away, Than I Strongly Recommend That You
Zero Out The Hard Disk Drive, Rather Than Just Re-Formatting It, Just FYI.

 

[bjr]

How about using a windows 98 or dos boot disk with the BIOS set to go to
the floppy first, or try going to the command prompt via an option in
safe mode (tapping the f4 or f8 key as the system boots up)

 

[Kevin Oye]

can I make one of these boot disks with Vista?

 

[On the Bridge!]

http://www.bootdisk.com

can I make one of these boot disks with Vista?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Does anyone know how to get the DOS prompt before it kicks into
windows? I have an older PC and I am giving it to a buddy of mine. I
have Win 2000 on it and it just freezes on me. If I could get the
prompt before this happens I can format the hard drive and then I will
be set.

TIA

Not possible. There's no such thing.

There is no way to reboot a Win2K 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 Win2K is a member, 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:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

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