starting up in DOS instead of windows??

[smile2499]

is there a way to start up up my computer in MS-DOS without going through windows? I'm using a windoes ME on a P3.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

hold Ctrl key.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

or when it says starting windows hit F8 (works for 95 and 98 anyway)

 

[HansXP]

Does that work in WinMe tho? I thought they made it almost impossible to get to DOS.

 

[wfbberzerker]

i dont think you can, i think they got rid of pretty much every dos thing in winme.

 

[Woody419]

Use the startup floppy or make one using the EBD (Emergency Boot disk) feature

 

[Woody419]

Here is more information on using EBD with WinMe, gleened from a Woody's Office newsletter:

Creating an Me Startup Disk Manually
Q: My Windows Me system crashed and I can no longer get Windows to start up at all. I was going to use my startup disk to get the system back up and running, but all I can find is my old Windows 98 startup disk; I don't seem to have an Me disk. Is it okay to use this old disk to boot, and then try correcting the problems and loading Windows Me? Or is there another way around my problem?
A: It all depends how badly your system has crashed. You can certainly boot with a Win 98 disk and take a look around from DOS. If necessary, you can reinstall Windows from your Windows Me CD (make sure you boot with CD-ROM support enabled).

However, if you'd like to create a Windows Me startup disk, you can do that, too. Although Me doesn't have a DOS-based startup disk creation utility, you can use your Windows 98 disk to create a Windows Me boot disk from DOS.

To do this, you'll need your Win 98 startup disk and a blank floppy. You'll also need to have the \Windows\Command\Ebd folder present on your hard disk. This is the Emergency Boot Disk folder. You can check for it by loading DOS (use your Win 98 boot disk to start your system and choose the Start Computer Without CD-ROM Support option) and then typing:

DIR c:\windows\command\ebd

and pressing Enter. You should see a listing of the files in the directory scroll by if it's present; otherwise you'll see the message File Not Found, and you're out of luck. (Of course, if you installed Windows to a folder other than c:\windows, then you'll need to substitute your installation folder's name in place of 'windows' in the command above.)

Once you've established the \windows\command\ebd folder is present, you're ready to roll:

Restart your computer using your Win 98 startup disk.
Select the option Start Computer Without CD-ROM Support from the menu.
When the DOS prompt appears, type:
FORMAT a: /s

and press Enter (don't worry about the case of the command - DOS will ignore upper and lowercase). Insert a blank floppy in the drive when prompted. When prompted for a label, use something descriptive like StartupMe and when asked if you wish to format another disk, press N.
When the formatting has finished, keep the floppy in the drive and type the following commands, pressing Enter after each one:
ATTRIB -h -s -r *.*
DEL *.*
COPY c:\windows\command\ebd\*.*

That's it. You can now reboot with your newly created Me Startup disk in the drive, and you'll be presented with the regular Win Me Startup Menu. Choose Start Computer With CD-ROM Support.