Category: Geeks r Us
Okay, quick question time. Can I partition a drive on a machine built for XP and then format that part to make it Fat-16 and also use only 64mb of ram? I plan on doing this with my new laptop so that I can keep XP on the one part and put DOS on the other. If it's successful, how will I get it to boot into the correct part and how, if possible, can I switch drives on the fly so that I can load the two systems without complicating things? Also, how do I keep DOS from seeing XP? Thanks.
Hi,
This is my opinion, here goes.
q: Can I partition a drive on a machine built for XP and then format that part to make it Fat-16 and also use only 64mb of ram?
a: Yes, you can. however I only know that it can be possible if say, you didn't have xp installed.
so for example, you would have to repartition your drive for both the operating systems, in order of installing ms-dos first on the fat16 drive then installing xp to the sepearat partition which would be NTFS. The reason for installing dos first then windows xp is so that dos if installed second does not overright the bootloader of xp.
As per the 64mb of ram thing I'm sure dos would recognise the current ram that you have, honestly, I wouldn't know dos's recognition with regard to memory.
q: how will I get it to boot into the correct part and how, if possible, can I switch drives on the fly so that I can load the two systems without complicating things?
a: From my experience with dual-boot, I've always known xp to load up first as the default os after installation, however, this can be changed by going to start, settings control panel, system, advanced tab, startup and recovery, and setting the default OS in which you would have windows xp as the first one and then ms dos however you can change it in the combo box. another option which is right next to it is time to display list of operating system you might wanna set this to a reasonable time in which at bootup it will give you a few seconds to choose the OS for booting in to.
As for your other question, dos will not know xp is there since xp uses a file system by default of NTFS.
hth
Definitely helps. Thanks a huge bunch. *smile*
The more I think of it, the more I think this is a bad idea. I don't wanna mess with XP on there unless I really have to. It'll come to me working and that's what I need right now. So I'll either use my bf's machine (which he'll most likely be giving to me so I can format it without a problem), get a really cheap (a few dollars) but working Thinkpad that I just saw today that's made for 95 but that I can easily switch, splurge on my Toshiba Libretto 110CT for ultraportability, or just put DOS onto a cf card and boot to the card with my XP machine. That way, I can put it in almost any machine and it won't interfeer with XP. Just not sure how to get it to boot from there and if I can easily change the option so that it can boot from XP most of the time.