Disk partitions ..Dos & XP

[williB]

has anyone ever tried to make a dos partition on a Drive with XP on it..
The problem is Dos wants the whole drive ..
How do i get DOS on a drive with XP ??
ps i've allready installed XP with a partition ( logical drive D ) and made it a FAT partition..? :?

 

[Joel Rainville]

DOS doesn't want the whole drive, it wants to be in the first primary partition of your hard disk. If your first partition (what Windows XP shows you as C: ) isn't FAT16, you're screwed, assuming you are using an actual DOS version 6.x and earlier.

Starting with DOS 7 (what comes with Windows 95 that can actually be used as a standalone DOS more or less successfully), you could use FAT32 on your primary partition.

But judging from the minimal details you give in your post, it looks like you are trying to use a DOS 6.x or earlier on a hard disk with a primary partition in FAT32. This is a no-go.

 

[Joel Rainville]

This forum needs a Software section :lol:

 

[williB]

DOS doesn't want the whole drive, it wants to be in the first primary partition of your hard disk. If your first partition (what Windows XP shows you as C: ) isn't FAT16, you're screwed, assuming you are using an actual DOS version 6.x and earlier.

Starting with DOS 7 (what comes with Windows 95 that can actually be used as a standalone DOS more or less successfully), you could use FAT32 on your primary partition.

But judging from the minimal details you give in your post, it looks like you are trying to use a DOS 6.x or earlier on a hard disk with a primary partition in FAT32. This is a no-go.

Ok so i gotta redo the partition on the HD and create one with FAT16 if i want to use 6.x ..in logical drive C spot..
and use FAT32 if i want to use 7.x ??
thanks

 

[Joel Rainville]

DOS doesn't want the whole drive, it wants to be in the first primary partition of your hard disk. If your first partition (what Windows XP shows you as C: ) isn't FAT16, you're screwed, assuming you are using an actual DOS version 6.x and earlier.

Starting with DOS 7 (what comes with Windows 95 that can actually be used as a standalone DOS more or less successfully), you could use FAT32 on your primary partition.

But judging from the minimal details you give in your post, it looks like you are trying to use a DOS 6.x or earlier on a hard disk with a primary partition in FAT32. This is a no-go.

Ok so i gotta redo the partition on the HD and create one with FAT16 if i want to use 6.x ..in logical drive C spot..
and use FAT32 if i want to use 7.x ??
thanks

Exactly.

Note, ideally you would create a logical C of 2GB less one cluster. That way you get the largest amount of space FAT16 will allow with a smaller cluster size than what you get at exactly 2GB. This will allow you to install both DOS and Windows XP on C:\, everything else on D:\ and other partitions. Or you could install XP straight to D:\, your choice. The advantage of smaller cluster size is faster reads & writes and less wasted space on small files.

 

[williB]

But judging from the minimal details you give in your post, it looks like you are trying to use a DOS 6.x or earlier on a hard disk with a primary partition in FAT32. This is a no-go.

No i didnt know that the first partition had to be DOS..
the way i had it set up was XP went on logical drive C,and tried to put DOS on D.. that didnt work..

 

[williB]

XP wont let me create a FAT partition on drive C.. :cry: as far as i can tell..

 

[Joel Rainville]

Of course, XP won't erase itself.

You basically have 2 options if you want to install Dos 6.x :

- kiss your current XP installation goodbye, boot from a DOS bootdisk and run fdisk to partition your hardrive.

- reinstall XP and specify a FAT16 filesystem for c:\

Is your current C:\ FAT32 or NTFS? If it's FAT32, you could avoid losing your XP installation by using DOS 7 on it.

What do you need DOS for exactly? In some circumstances, DOS 7 just won't do it...

 

[Joel Rainville]

To elaborate a little, partitioning usually needs to planned well ahead, since it is very hard (sometimes impossible) and risky to modify it once you have data written to the partitions.

There are methods (and software) that will allow some modifications, but if you don't know exactly what you're doing, failure and data loss is guaranteed! Even when you do know what you're doing, the software often fails and you still end up with a wiped drive.

So the only solution 99% of the time is to start from scratch using fdisk under DOS (other OSes have different but similar tools) to repartition your drive(s).

 

[williB]

Of course, XP won't erase itself.

You basically have 2 options if you want to install Dos 6.x :

- kiss your current XP installation goodbye, boot from a DOS bootdisk and run fdisk to partition your hardrive.

- reinstall XP and specify a FAT16 filesystem for c:\

Is your current C:\ FAT32 or NTFS? If it's FAT32, you could avoid losing your XP installation by using DOS 7 on it.

What do you need DOS for exactly? In some circumstances, DOS 7 just won't do it...

ok Here is the dealy..
I am setting up a box to run Autocad & My Pic Programmer ( which uses turbo pascal) --both run on DOS ..
and i thought that having XP on there also i could transfer files to both pgms easier.. :wink:

 

[TekNoir]

I have a very cheap secondary harddrive loaded with DOS 6.22 and run a bootmanager to accomplish this.

The program that I use is the boot manager from Acronis Disk Director Suite 9.0. You can find information here - https://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/

 

[Joel Rainville]

Of course, XP won't erase itself.

You basically have 2 options if you want to install Dos 6.x :

- kiss your current XP installation goodbye, boot from a DOS bootdisk and run fdisk to partition your hardrive.

- reinstall XP and specify a FAT16 filesystem for c:\

Is your current C:\ FAT32 or NTFS? If it's FAT32, you could avoid losing your XP installation by using DOS 7 on it.

What do you need DOS for exactly? In some circumstances, DOS 7 just won't do it...

ok Here is the dealy..
I am setting up a box to run Autocad & My Pic Programmer ( which uses turbo pascal) --both run on DOS ..
and i thought that having XP on there also i could transfer files to both pgms easier.. :wink:

Ok, so you don't mind wiping XP and starting from sratch, right?

Do you have a DOS bootdisk? Are you comfortable running fdisk under DOS to partition your drive?

 

[Joel Rainville]

I have a very cheap secondary harddrive loaded with DOS 6.22 and run a bootloader to accomplish this.

Yeah, that would work, even with XP's bootloader. But you need a second drive

 

[williB]

Of course, XP won't erase itself.

You basically have 2 options if you want to install Dos 6.x :

- kiss your current XP installation goodbye, boot from a DOS bootdisk and run fdisk to partition your hardrive.

- reinstall XP and specify a FAT16 filesystem for c:\

Is your current C:\ FAT32 or NTFS? If it's FAT32, you could avoid losing your XP installation by using DOS 7 on it.

What do you need DOS for exactly? In some circumstances, DOS 7 just won't do it...

ok Here is the dealy..
I am setting up a box to run Autocad & My Pic Programmer ( which uses turbo pascal) --both run on DOS ..
and i thought that having XP on there also i could transfer files to both pgms easier.. :wink:

Ok, so you don't mind wiping XP and starting from sratch, right?

Do you have a DOS bootdisk? Are you comfortable running fdisk under DOS to partition your drive?

Q 1 : correct..i've allready loaded it in twice.. :lol:
Q2: yes ..& If thats what it takes to do it ...yeah.. :lol:

 

[williB]

I have a very cheap secondary harddrive loaded with DOS 6.22 and run a bootloader to accomplish this.

Yeah, that would work, even with XP's bootloader. But you need a second drive

i've got oodles of drives floating around here...

 

[Joel Rainville]

I have a very cheap secondary harddrive loaded with DOS 6.22 and run a bootloader to accomplish this.

Yeah, that would work, even with XP's bootloader. But you need a second drive

i've got oodles of drives floating around here...

There you go then!

Don't wipe XP! Disconnect your current hard drive from the IDE controller, and put in a new drive as a master on the first IDE controller. Boot from the DOS disk, partition, install, reboot to make sure DOS works and when you're finished, put the XP disk back in as master, and the DOS disk as slave on the same controller. Boot XP, you will then need to add an entry to your c:\boot.ini file to tell XP's bootloader how to boot DOS. I'll check for the correct syntax, I don't know it by heart, and I'll post it in a few minutes...

 

[Joel Rainville]

Your current c:\boot.ini file should look something like this :

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINXP
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINXP="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Note, this file is a read-only hidden system file. You need to temporarily remove the read-only protection to edit it.

After the last line, add :

multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\="DOS 6.22"

Maybe Teknoir can confirm that the above line is correct?...

Next time you reboot, you will have an entry under "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" to boot "DOS 6.22"

 

[TekNoir]

All the info you could want for WindowsXP boot.ini file -- https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;289022#XSLTH4157121122120121120120

 

[Joel Rainville]

All the info you could want for WindowsXP boot.ini file -- https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;289022#XSLTH4157121122120121120120

Cool, thanks 8)

 

[TekNoir]

And another, more comprehensive -- **broken link removed**

And yet another --
https://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2337

(I had trouble finding them among my thousands of bookmarks.)