DOS Partition
 

Hi

I wonder can any of you fine chaps help me, i have a dell inspiron 1100 laptop currently running windows 2000 pro, i am wanting to load on xp but also create an ms dos partition on my hard drive as i need to run dos programs for some kit i use at work(fire panels) one of my colleagues has his samsung set up with xp, ms dos partition and also 2 separate drive letters for his hard drive, if this is possible i would like to know how i can do this

Many Thanks

Re: DOS Partition
 

Install windows xp clean (format hard drive on install) to a partition of a certain size (boot from the XP CD and follow on screen prompts) and once the install is complete you can use the Disk Management tools to partition the remaining drive space into a partition for DOS, a partition for storage etc. Each partition will have it's own drive letter (hence why your mate has two letters on his computer).
Well that's one way, I'm sure others can think of better ways though ;)

Re: DOS Partition
 

Boot from your MS-DOS Floppy! (Create partition of correct size and format) install MS-DOS so PC will boot to dos.
Then boot from your Windows XP CD and use a different area of the disk to install Windows (or same area BUT DO NOT convert or format area as NTFS).

Then when Windows boots (Boot Loader) select DOS or whatever it describes it as to get to DOS

Re: DOS Partition
 

Or if you don't fancy the manual route, give something like Partition Magic a go. You can then create a new partition after having installed XP. It's all point-and-click, so nothing too scary ;)

Re: DOS Partition
 

i created an ms dos boot disk in xp, is that what you mean? i take it i just restart pc and boot from floppy? how do i then go about creating the partition, i have a clean install of xp on

Re: DOS Partition
 

Ah, unfortunatley, as you already have XP installed, it gets a bit tricky, unless you don't mind wiping everything and starting from scratch.

Re: DOS Partition
 

is there no other way, it takes ages for me to load everything back on... i have heard of programs such as boot magic or partition magic or along those lines... if i can help it i really dont want to re format

Re: DOS Partition
 

Partition Magic would do the trick, but it is about $69 to download, 'boot magic' is part of Partition Magic afaik.

Re: DOS Partition
 

i have partition magic what do i need to do

Re: DOS Partition
 

which version - and do you know if your existing installation is FAT32 or NTFS?