A friend's Medion laptop has zero changes left in the region settings and is locked on region 1. Medion helpline want £250.00 to remedy this, but the chap did tell me unofficially to research on the internet and I might find a solution!!! After some searching I think I've found a firmware patch, but to install it I need to restart this XP Laptop in Real Dos mode according to the instructions. Can anyone tell me how to do this. I'm new to XP and I still use 98 on my own pcs. Thanks for any replies

XP does NOT have a REAL dos mode. You will have to use a boot disk to do the Dirty deed. If the XP partition is in NTFS format then you will NOT be able to use a normal boot disk. You will have to find a copy of NTFSPro. This will allow you to read and write to the NTFS partition from a boot floppy. Sorry I dont know of a leagle place to download the above program. VP

theres a much easier way to do that, just get a dos boot disk, and copy the firmware upgrade to a 2nd floppy disk and when you boot into dos, put the floppy with the firmware upgrade in it (if you dont know how to use dos, to show what is in the a:\ drive, type "dir" then hit enter, then type the name of the firmware program in and hit enter.)

I have a very similar laptop (maybe identical actually). Managed to flash the firmware on DVD successfully (so it's possible!). One thing I found was that the 'firm ware flashing thing-am-y program' needed running off the boot disk NOT the hard disk. This may vary from machine to machine. DVD Genie and the site www.inmatrix.com are very useful! Finally the trusty windows 98 boot disk is the best way to get into real mode dos. good luck!