I've looked around on how to do this, and i can't find anything, and then i remembered this place and how everyone was helpful last time...


I need to reformat my PC, the only problem is that we've got a new one, with Windows Xp (used to have 98SE)... i've just got one question....

HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET INTO DOS?????????!!!!!!!!!!??????

I've tried looking at the startup menu things (you get when Windows is starting up by pushing button 'x', usually F8), and every option is just another way of starting Windows XP.

I doubt that it would work by reformatting from the command prompt in Windows Xp, as Windows XP is still running and not all the files would be erased and the harddrive would be seriously stuffed then...


Btw, we've got a Dell, if that matters or not. Their resource CD doesn't have anything i can find on getting into DOS either.


Any help would be much appreciated...


Aussie

Hi Aussie, I'm not an expert on XP, but I think probably the easiest way is to create a DOS boot up disk from the format area of the floppy drive.

I just checked and it's not that obvious to find the format part of your floppy drive - Select the drive from My Computer and then select format from the File menu.

Hope this works for you,
Chris P

Greetings Crispy & Aussie86

1)start 2) all programs 3)accesories 4) command prompt.

Have a great day

Hi fabion, that's fine for getting a DOS prompt, but reformatting the hard drive wouldn't work too well with Windows running - Would it?

Good point Crispy.

Hadn't had my 1st cup of coffee yet.

Well take back what I said earlier. I have a DELL and had to do the same thing. DELL sucks in this aspect (my opinion).

Forget the resource cd for now. Find the windowsXP cd.

You will need to go into your bios setup F2 (which I normally don't recommend) and change your boot from settings.

You need to change it to boot from cd. at the bottom of the screen it will tell you how to move this up. Don't forget to save your settings.

Make Sure your windowsXP disk they supplied is in your cd drive.
It should boot from the WindowsXP disk and allow you to do what you want.

Dear Aussie86

To reformat your new Dell hard disk you will need a set of DOS disks, there are six disk in all and you will need to get them to work by starting your PC with disk 1 in the floppy drive, then feed them in one at a time when prompted.

However, you will have a number of problems, like where can you get a set of disk from, MS no longer makes them. DOS can only see and format 2GB of hard disk, modern hard disks are usually 60 - 100GB, so formatting in DOS is not really practical. Also, DOS can only see a small portion of your PCs memory, not the 256MB it must now come with.

With the limitations DOS has, why would you want to delete XP from your new PC and replace it with DOS, especially as XP has a DOS window you can use for any DOS type task?

Anyway, if you just want to get into XPs DOS prompt then do the following:

1) Click "Run" in XPs menu, this will bring up the "Run" box (see attachment)

2) Type in "cmd" then click "OK"

This will open a DOS window on your screen.

Now you can run your DOS-like commands in this window.



UK Bob

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