Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clarence Dodge who wrote (4173)	12/12/1998 12:46:00 AM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14778

Seems like the NT dos prompt would be sufficient for the time being. I'll give this a shot..someone correct me if I am wrong. If you just want to run some basic DOS programs the NT DOS prompt will work. I have a Quattro Pro DOS spread sheet that works fine in an NT DOS window. I also use my old favorite file utility XTREE GOLD in an NT DOS Window. This option is resident inside NT. I can not run my DOS CAD application in an NT DOS window as it needs more control of the computer than NT DOS will allow. This program must be run in a REAL DOS installation. If your intent is to fix NT using DOS you will need a separate REAL DOS installation. The pseudo NT DOS will not make it. I know of two ways to use REAL DOS. The first is to install DOS on the harddrive before you install NT. Then when you install NT it will detect the DOS installation and set up a dual boot for you. Then at boot you will be able to select DOS as your operating system or NT. Spots indicated that you can install DOS after NT has been installed but it is not a straight forward procedure. I do not know the procedure with other boot managers but am interested in how they work 'after the fact' ie If NT is installed first is it a straight forward procedure to install DOS or Win95 or both? The second option for REAL DOS is to boot it from a floppy or JAZ or LS120 or ZIP or second harddrive. The floppy DOS boot is not that tough, just best addressed as a separate issue so as not to confuse. wouldn't the boot manager boot real dos from the same installed dos needed by NT for the NT dos prompt NO. I would not characterize the NT DOS prompt as coming from installed DOS. It is more like limited DOS sufficient to run some of your old DOS programs. I don't have a handle on NTFS DOS yet except it is a way around the harddrive formatting issue. REAL DOS will not see an NTFS harddrive format. Zeuspaul

To: Clarence Dodge who wrote (4173)	12/14/1998 12:57:00 AM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

Booting DOS....Power Quest Boot Manager..After NT installation I spent a little time in the Partition Magic manual today. I was reading up on the boot manager. I am not proposing this as the best alternative..just looking at the options. The description of installing the boot manager assumes you have an existing OS on the full C drive. This would be the situation with a clean new NT installation. Without going into a step by step (which I don't think I can do) I can give a summary as to the way I understand it. The first step is to execute Partition Magic.( I am reading the 3.0 manual, 4.0 installs directly to NT where as 3.0 does not) With the resize option one reduces the size of the C partition. This leaves 'free space' at the end of the C partition. The second step is to install the boot manager from the Partition Magic menu. You tell Partition Magic to put the boot manager at the END of the free space in its own partition. This was a surprise to me. I always assumed it would be at the beginning of the drive as Spots explained with the NT boot manager. You then create a third partition for your DOS installation (or other OS). There is a bit of a catch 22 in the procedure as you must maintain a working boot. A detail that I need to reread to understand. It involves booting a couple of times and changing the active partition. The end result is changing the active partition to the last partition containing the boot manager. Since the partition that contains the original NT installation is set to "non active"? it is skipped in the boot search. Since the boot manager is on the only active partition the boot manager is seen first and then gives you the option of which partition/OS to boot. It would be wise to backup the NT installation before playing around with the PM BM. This may also have a catch 22 element if all you have is one physical drive and one partition. Drive Image requires a second partition or second drive to create the backup file. IMO this line of thought leads to a second physical drive as has been mentioned in a couple of the recent posts addressing this issue. IMO your are best off with a harddrive DOS installation which is best done on a second physical drive leaving the original NT installation untouched. My preference would be to select the boot from the bios. It seems a lot safer than the boot manager or 'inserting' records at the beginning of the NT installation. Safe is a dangerous word here as one can do damage in the bios too..just a different kind of damage. Both the BM option and the 'insert' option sound 'scary' to me. By that I mean one misstep and you lose NT. Once installed either should work fine. IMO you should also maintain the capability of booting DOS from a floppy even if you have a harddrive DOS installation. The floppy DOS boot could suffice by itself...it is certainly the cheapest solution. Let us know if all your computer friends are Mac users ie you do not have a way to make a DOS boot disk. Zeuspaul