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Question

MS-DOS won't dual boot with XP

by Aug 11, 2011 5:15AM PDT

So I have a XP computer but I want to run a MS-DOS dual boot on it for running some really old programs. I created a 2gb FAT32 partition and installed MS-DOS 7.1 on it. Now my problem is that XP doesn't recognize dos as an operating system and so won't dual boot. For what I know I have to change the boot.ini file to access the dual boot but I'm not that well versed to edit such a file and I don't want to mess up important file. I was wondering if someone else has done this and could show me steps..or if its even possible

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2 Posts
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Answer
This is where I use Virtual Box.
by Forum moderator Aug 11, 2011 5:30AM PDT

I can install MS-DOS in a Virtual Box and get on with the task that required it.

It's free, found with Google and I have not found anyone upgrade MS-DOS to get around it's old limits.
Bob

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Answer
Are you sure that ...
by Aug 11, 2011 9:51AM PDT
"I created a 2gb FAT32 partition and installed MS-DOS" is what you did?

If so DOS didn't install as DOS doesn't handle FAT32. Reformat the partition (which MUST be a primary partition and LESS than 2GB unless using DOS 5 or higher) to FAT16 then try re-installing DOS. Once you get it installed you should have problems booting to XP until you use the repair option and fix the boot sector.

Bob's suggestion to use Virtual Box or Microsoft's own VirtualPC is really the simplest route to go
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