Hi Friends, can u please solve me a problem, coz u appear to be very good at DOS and all that. I have a Windows XP Pro SP2 Installed in One Primary Partition (C:) and i have one extended Partition (D:) and i want to have an option to boot to "MS DOS Prompt" via the Boot Menu (by modifying Boot.ini File) and making any settings Since the DOS in Windows XP is not fully functional, i wanted to have an option to Boot to to the fully functional MS DOS. I have heard that in order to do that, i want to install DOS first then Windows, but since Windows is already installed and heavily customized, it will take me a month to regenerate this back. Can u please help me to do that, so that i have an option to boot from either DOS or XP at startup, one to be run from Primary (C:) and other from Extended (D:) Thanks

I'm not sure about installing DOS after XP, but the first thing that you have to be concerned with, is that XP is usually setup to use the NTFS file system. That is incompatible with DOS. So you would need a FAT drive to install DOS on. Also be aware that DOS would not be able to access anything on a NTFS drive.

Does your Acer still have the original Acer software installation on it, or did you install XP by using a regular Windows CD? If it still has the original Acer software installation on it, the original data contents of the D partition are not supposed to be altered in any way, or deleted. If you have already done that, you have lost the ability of being able to use a single Recovery CD along with the contents of D to restore the original contents of C. The only way you can restore the original contents of C is by using a Recovery CD set to reload the entire hard drive. ..... Whether you even need to have a Dos operating system on a partition depends on what Dos programs you are trying to use. There IS some support in XP that allows you to run some Dos programs. Many old Dos games can run in XP. However, in both cases, you may need to use some sort of freeware helper program to make that work properly. What Dos programs or games do you want to be able to use? ....... There are more requirements than you have mentioned. What those requirements are depends somewhat on which Dos version you want to use - a legacy Microsoft or IBM one (e.g. MsDos 6.2) , or a modified version of the one Win 9x uses (Dos 7.x), or another custom Dos version made after the legacy ones. The older legacy Dos versions have limitations regarding where they can be installed on a hard drive, what max size of partition they can handle, and which partitioning types they can recognize. E.g. they should often be installed at the begginning of the hard drive space on a Primary partition, or starting before the 1024th cylinder, be no larger than 2.1gb, and be using FAT (FAT 16, or earlier) partitioning. When you already have the first part of the hard drive space occupied by Win 95 or later operating system, if you don't want to lose the data on that partition, you can move the partition on the drive rather than having to re-install Windows from scratch. There is nothing built into XP that allows you to do that, but third party programs can. You can use what is generically called a partition manipulation program to move or re-size the partitions on a hard drive. One you must pay for that is a good one is Partition Magic, preferably version 8.0 or later - there are also freeware ones available on the web. E.g. you could re-size the partition XP is on to make it smaller by about 2.1gb at the beginning of the drive, such that the space freed up is at the beginning of the drive's space, which frees up about 2.1gb of un-allocated space, partition and format that unallocated space using FAT16 partitioning, then install your Dos op system on that partition no problem, since it can't see FAT32 and NTFS partitions. XP has no problem with there being more than one Primary partition on a hard drive, but it can only boot Windows from one Primary partition that has Windows installed on it at a time. Legacy Dos versions will not allow there to be more than one Primary partition on a hard drive - if you have more than one that is visible to it, it must be hidden, one way or another, from the legacy operating system. If all the other partitions on the same hard drive are FAT32 or NTFS, that's no problem since the legacy Dos versions can't see those partitions and behave as if the partition(s) they can see is(are) the only one(s). After you have resized the XP partition, made the new partition, and installed the Dos op system on it, the computer will boot into Dos instead of XP. To fix that situation, you can boot using the XP CD, and after it has loaded the initial Setup files, you choose to Repair Windows at the first screen you see, which takes you to the black screen Recovery Console interface, then you can type lines and use a program to rebuild your XP boot.ini file, which will enable XP to set up a dual boot cfg situation where you can select either the Dos op system/ partition or the XP op system / partition each time you boot. I can supply more detail about using that program if you need it. ........ If your Acer is a desktop computer, it is much easier to install a second hard drive, and install the Dos op system on that, then set up up the dual boot situation. ...... Win 98 and 98SE have decent Dos program support, and have far fewer limitations than a legacy Dos versions. The Dos that is a modified version of the Dos they use (dos 7.x) is also much more versatile than the legecy Dos versions.

What not install Virtual PC 2007, it is FREE: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pr...

If you are not very good with DOS as you've alleged, I wonder just what you intend to do from within DOS that explicitly demands setting up a DOS machine - huh? Are you in the process of acquiring a program that requires DOS or do you currently have applications that specifically require the DOS environment to work or something? Perhaps, revealing a little bit more about what you're trying to accomplish here might better help us with what to suggest. http://www.freedos.org/freedos/news... Jabbering Idiots: Everywhere You Look!

@ Aeqis; yeah thanks buddy, i always use FAT32 Partitions @ Tubesandwires; Thank you too, i have send you a PM, please reply THanks @ ITGURU; i also use Virtual PC but i wanna use GHost and other Soft on my Physical Drive, rather then Virtual One, so this may not help me. But Thanks, you tried to help me @ Sabertooth; yeah sorry buddy, actually i need to use DOS Environment SOfts (like Ghost, PQMAgic), please reply to solve my problem thanks. and i am good at DOS, but not good at making it Bootable with XP. Thanks to all friends, further replies needed

GHOST 'might' work if you boot on DOS floppy or CD. ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2