I am installing Wndows 2000 on a new hard drive and I need to have DOS available for one program. My research leads me to believe I cannot take advantage of the NTFS file system with a dual boot configuration. Can I put MSDOS 6.2.2 on a second hard drive and choose which drive I boot to?

DOS has to be on HD-1 - active Primary/system partition; installs as FAT16 into a max of 2Gig... W2K can go 'anywhere'; but its boot/start-up files will go into the DOS partition (system/active Primary). As your 'new' HD will be faster than the older one... I suggest you create the DOS area on the new HD; Install DOS first; create a common (FAT16) data area as the first logical-drive on this new HD (perhaps more than one???); install W2K into a logical-drive on the new HD - after FAT16 data areas; (create all FAT32/NTFS areas after all FAT16 areas...). Use HD-2 (the older HD) as additional data areas (with both Primary and Extended partition space). Using older HD as HD-1 may/will reduce benefits of new HD speed-wise... W2K on faster HD will benefit... You will have dual-boot system. W2K provides the boot-menu option. Do not reformat the DOS area otherwise you lose access to W2K - until you do a little repair work... Once it's all set up and running OK, make the ERD for W2K; keep safe/current. http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q217/2/10.ASP may also be if interest; it's modifiable to your needs... I have seen M$ (and other Gurus) advise to install W2K at the end of a dual/multi-boot HD; with data areas in between itself and other OS's, and with FAT16 areas at the start of the Extended space, then FAT32, then NTFS... HTH...

lm-s, Thanks so much for the input. I was hoping to use the smaller of the two drives (a bit older) for the dos os and the dos program, as I expect a windows version of the program in the near future. I only have to access the one dos program a few times per month, and was thinking I could do away with the msdos and program with ease, not having to reconfigure W2K again. Any more inoput before I start would be of great help. Thanks again for your input.

Hey Bob, there are a couple of ways you can do this. 1. Get removable hard drive bays and then you can physicaly switch out which drive you want to use. 2. They make these neat hard drive switches that will let you choose which drive to boot to. Just put two drives in your system and put DOS on one and Win2k on the other.

Thanks again for the help and input. I think I will take the switch advice, as it will allow me to deal with the DOS stuff w/o messing with the W2K configuration. Who makes the neat switches? Thanks again.