• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Dual Boot: Win2k and MS-DOS 6.22

S

Shaka

Senior member
Hi,

I have read many articles and many posts on this forum about dual booting. But none of them really tell me what to do in my specific case. If this topic has been beaten to death, please excuse my ignorance.

I have Win2k on the master harddrive w/multiple partitions. I have MS-DOS 6.22 on the slave harddrive. I boot default to Win2k. To get MS-DOS to install on my slave harddrive (F🙂, I had to disconnect my master harddrive, make my slave to master, and then format and install MS-DOS 6.22. My question is, now that I have my system back where Win2k boots normally, how do I get that list to decided which OS to boot into?

I have looked at the boot.ini file and am totally confused. Please help... all I want is to play X-Com1 and 2.
 
im not sure but i think lilo might be a solution, i think it might only be available with linux tho, grrr sorry i cant be of more help
 
In order to dual boot with the Win2K menu, you would have had to install DOS on the C: partition. The idea is NOT to switch around which physical drives to boot from...this will NOT work.

To take advantage of the Win2K boot menu, you would have had to install DOS 1st on the active partition on the primary drive, and then Win2K over top to any other partition. Do not disconnect and switch around the drives. Both DOS and Win2K need to place boot files in the active primary partition in order to work.

Have a look at SUOrangeman's Dissertation on Partitioning for a full explanation.
 
I wonder if the following would work:

Go to www.winimage.com and grab BootPart. Run it from a DOS window while in Win2K and extract the boot record for your DOS install. With the right parameters, BootPart will automagically add an option to yout Win2K loader for booting to the DOS install. Reboot and try it out.

I've never tried such a scenario, but it sure as hell sounds better than redoing your system. 🙂

You can also try to see if you BIOS gives you the option to choose which hard drive to boot (newer mobos seem to allow this, when multiple hard drives are connected).

-SUO
 
Ok, well the standard place to choose which OS to boot is in Start>Settings>Control Panel>System. Click on the Advanced tab and it shows Startup and Recovery as the third option down. Choose that and your next page is the one you want.

Only problem is that it generally only recognizes operating systems installed at the time it was installed itself.
 
Another option would be to boot into DOS with a floppy and then, so you could remove the floppy, set comspec to the HD's copy of DOS.
 
whats "comspec"? I've used DOS a lot (started on an 8088) and I haven't heard of that - once I've used a boot disk I always had ot keep it in! sometimes running the command.com on the c drive would let me remove the bootdisk.
 
I have Win2K and MSDOS running on two different primary partitions of the same hard drive. I did this using an variation on an old post from Bad_Dude on how to setup Win2K/Win98 on two separate partitions. I would try this to see if it works. I am not sure if it will work with two separate hard drives.

Steps are:
1. Go to your DOS partition, DOS directory
2. Type debug
3. Enter these scripts(commands):
L 100 2 0 1
n bootsect.dos
rcx
200
w
q
4. Reboot into Win2K.
5. Copy bootsect.dos to your C:\ directory of Win2K partition
6. Add following line to end of C:\BOOT.INI
c:\bootsect.dos="MS-DOS"
7. Reboot

If this works you will see MS-DOS in the menu, and it should boot your MS-DOS when selected. Please post back with results if you try this.
 
CTho9305:

The comspec environment variable tells DOS where to find it's command interpreter (command.com).

For example, on a Win98SE bootdisk the bootdisk makes a small RAMdrive and copies important system files over to the RAM disk and then copies command.com there and then sets comspec to the ram drive copy of command.com instead of the floppy disk.

That was you can lose the floppy disk after it's finished booting, as it knows it has a copy of command.com in the ram disk.
 
Hi,

I have considered all suggestions posted and tried AU tiger's solution. But, it didn't work. When I chose "MS-DOS" from the menu, it replied:

"Non system disk or disk error
Replace and press any key when ready"

So I press a key and it puts me back at the boot menu.

I think this may be because Win2k is on my primary partition of my master harddrive. And since this partition is NTFS, DOS cannot read it. But this is just uninformed speculation on my part.

Maybe I should give some more detail:

Primary Master harddrive:

C: Winnt stuff
D: Apps
E: Storage

Primary Slave harddrive:

F: MS-DOS

This is how it looks in Win2k. C: is the primary active partition, D: and E: are logical drives on an Extended partition (I hope I used the vocab right). F: is a totally different harddrive which I formatted by placing it on Primary Master. I will try SUOrangeman's solution now. Thank you for all the input!

EDIT:

I looked at BootPart and it says I need: "...your active partition on your first hard disk must be a FAT16 primary partition..."

This would require that I use PartitionMagic and make a partition in front of my current C: partition. The question is: Am I really that desperate to do this?

Also, does anyone have any experience with VMware's software?
 
I've got into the habit of ALWAYS install in DOS first in a small partition. Well, not too small, as frequently the next OS install will want to use that partition to copy files to during installation, but 512MB should be enough.

Can't say I remember when I last booted up under DOS, must have been around X-mas time.
 
Hmm... That's interesting. So after installation of the next OS, would the 512mb be wasted? Or would you use that as... swap file space? I could use Partition Magic to make a 100mb partition in front of my current C: drive. Then install DOS into that.

Actually, I've made a DOS boot disk and am able to use that to access my Primary slave harddrive. This is kind of a workaround, but it works. I can't get my SBlive to work under DOS though... I've read a lot of articles and they all seem to indicate that it can't be done... Can anyone give me some advice? Other than just going out to buy a sb16...

 
Shaka,

Sorry to hear my suggestion didn't work.

I too am interested in getting SBLive to work under DOS. There are those that have done it according to posts in Creative's SBLive newsgroup. I haven't tried it myself, but will be doing so sometime this week. I will let you know if I figure it out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top