Choice of OS at boot.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pelerin Galimatias
  • Start date Start date
P

Pelerin Galimatias

My computer with Win2000,used to offer the choice between
Win2000 and DOS at boot, now it doesn't. What can I do to
get this option back?
 
Do you mean cmd prompt or DOS? If the former then F8 at startup. If the
latter then you must install DOS to the system partition prior to installing
Windows 2000.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| My computer with Win2000,used to offer the choice between
| Win2000 and DOS at boot, now it doesn't. What can I do to
| get this option back?
| --
| 0000001000000100000110001000011010001111110010111011101000010000
|
 
Do you mean cmd prompt or DOS? If the former then F8 at startup. If the
latter then you must install DOS to the system partition prior to installing
Windows 2000.
Click to expand...
I have GW Basic and other DOS programs that I would like to run.
Are you sure that Win 2000 doesn't come with a version of DOS?
It does have a built in query, on boot, asking for a choice between
Win and Dos.
 
Yes I'm sure.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];217210

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| I have GW Basic and other DOS programs that I would like to run.
| Are you sure that Win 2000 doesn't come with a version of DOS?
| It does have a built in query, on boot, asking for a choice between
| Win and Dos.
| --
| 0000001000000100000110001000011010001111110010111011101000010000
|
 
Do you mean cmd prompt or DOS? If the former then F8 at startup. If the
latter then you must install DOS to the system partition prior to installing
Windows 2000.
Click to expand...
My machine which offers a choice between win2000 and dos upon
boot up was installed over win98. Did the dos come from win98?
 
Depends on what you mean by "installed over win98". Do you find bootsect.dos
in the root of the system partition?

Some background info;
When you dualboot Win9x and Windows 2000; Windows 2000 creates a file named
bootsect.dos; if you select an operating system other than Windows 2000,
NTLDR loads bootsect.dos and passes control to it. The operating system then
starts up as normal, because bootsect.dos contains the boot sector that was
on the primary partition before you installed Windows 2000


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| My machine which offers a choice between win2000 and dos upon
| boot up was installed over win98. Did the dos come from win98?
|
 
Depends on what you mean by "installed over win98". Do you find bootsect.dos
in the root of the system partition?

Some background info;
When you dualboot Win9x and Windows 2000; Windows 2000 creates a file named
bootsect.dos; if you select an operating system other than Windows 2000,
NTLDR loads bootsect.dos and passes control to it. The operating system then
starts up as normal, because bootsect.dos contains the boot sector that was
on the primary partition before you installed Windows 2000
Click to expand...
I installed Win 2000 on a machine which had Win 98 on drive C without removing
the previous installation. It does not have a file called bootsect.dos, but
does offer a choice between Win2000 and DOS.
 
Then it sounds like you did an upgrade which doesn't allow for starting the
previous operating system.

Earlier you stated "My computer with Win2000 used to offer the choice
between Win2000 and DOS at boot, now it doesn't"

Now you're telling us it "does offer a choice between Win2000 and DOS"

This is rather confusing.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| I installed Win 2000 on a machine which had Win 98 on drive C without
removing
| the previous installation. It does not have a file called bootsect.dos,
but
| does offer a choice between Win2000 and DOS.
|
 
Pelerin Galimatias said:
I installed Win 2000 on a machine which had Win 98 on drive C without removing
the previous installation. It does not have a file called bootsect.dos, but
does offer a choice between Win2000 and DOS.
Click to expand...

Bootsect.dos normally has the hidden and system properties. Depending on
how you look for it, you might not find it because of that.
 
Then it sounds like you did an upgrade which doesn't allow for starting the
previous operating system.

Earlier you stated "My computer with Win2000 used to offer the choice
between Win2000 and DOS at boot, now it doesn't"

Now you're telling us it "does offer a choice between Win2000 and DOS"

This is rather confusing.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| I installed Win 2000 on a machine which had Win 98 on drive C without
removing
| the previous installation. It does not have a file called bootsect.dos,
but
| does offer a choice between Win2000 and DOS.
|
Click to expand...

I have two machines with Win2000--one offers the choice and one
doesn't. The one that does had Win98 to begin with and I installed
Win2000 over it. The other had been tranferred from a failing
hard drive, from a Ghost file, and I believe had been from a clean
installation. It offered the choice to begin with, but with a blank
where DOS should be. The choice then faded out and has never returned.
 
How confusing; to speak of two different systems without mentioning this.

"I installed Win2000 over it"

To me this means upgrade.

Then refer to the article I posted. You'll need to install DOS first then
Windows 2000

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| I have two machines with Win2000--one offers the choice and one
| doesn't. The one that does had Win98 to begin with and I installed
| Win2000 over it. The other had been tranferred from a failing
| hard drive, from a Ghost file, and I believe had been from a clean
| installation. It offered the choice to begin with, but with a blank
| where DOS should be. The choice then faded out and has never returned.
|
|
|
|
| --
| 0000001000000100000110001000011010001111110010111011101000010000
|
 
Bootsect.dos is not the only way of getting dos. Look at your boot.ini.
Does it have c:\bootsect.dos or does it have c:\ Both will get you "dos"
ASSUMING you have dos files and are loading a dos shell in which to run those
files.

Just formatting a drive with a 98 diskette with W2K/XP installed afterward
will result in a "dos" boot but all that is there is msdos, io.sys and
command.com.

Post your boot.ini and perhaps we can get "dos" back for you.
 
In
Pelerin Galimatias said:
I have GW Basic and other DOS programs that I would like to run.
Are you sure that Win 2000 doesn't come with a version of DOS?
It does have a built in query, on boot, asking for a choice between
Win and Dos.
Click to expand...

FWIW I can run GW Basic from a command promt (cmd.exe) as well as from
windows 2000's COMMAND.COM. In the first case gwbasic.exe runs in an NT
Virtual Dos Machine (NTVDM). In the second, COMMAND.COM and descendents run
in an NTVDM.
 
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