Dual Boot Win 7 Dos 7

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This DOS 6 documentation link doesn’t work.

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/DOS+6.x

Addendum:

“You can't add DOS to an existing W7 install on the same HDD because it needs to be at the front of its HDD. Re arranging your HDD (or adding a new one) will work.”

Windows 7 usually makes a 100 MB hidden what we call boot partition at the front of the hard drive infer the main partition for Windows seven. Couldn’t this partition be used for installing DOS? We can unhide at and make sure it’s a primary and convert it from NTFS to FAT16?

I was just wondering if this might be possible. I can’t test this setup because my current system doesn’t have a floppy drive.
 
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Can NTFS be re-converted to FAT ?
I thought it was a one-way process, or is that just a Windows internal restriction ?
(and that partition will only be there if you let W7 arrange its own space at install. If, like me, you pre-format your HDD into multiple partitions before you install the OSs, W7 is all in one place)
 
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You can convert it with 3rd party partition tools. I know the FAT filesystem can be converted in-place to NTFS (i.e. without needing to copy or move the files), but I'm not sure if Partition Magic and its ilk will do so or if they create a temporary NTFS partition then resize, etc.

Addendum:

btw, OP, Dos 7?

That's not real dos.... that's Windows 95 without the Windows.......
 
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“Can NTFS be re-converted to FAT ?
I thought it was a one-way process, or is that just a Windows internal restriction ?”

I believe PartitionMagic could convert NTFS back in the fat 16. And PartitionMagic I don’t label run on the modern big hard drives. I tested it and I couldn’t get it to run. Unfortunately I don’t think Gparted will convert NTFS to FAT 16. If one has a boot option set up in the Windows XP, one could try copying the files out of the boot partition. Then use Gparted to format the boot partition fat 16. Then copy the files back. That might work.

“(and that partition will only be there if you let W7 arrange its own space at install. If, like me, you pre-format your HDD into multiple partitions before you install the OSs, W7 is all in one place)”

I had a 2 GB fat 16 partition at the front of the drive to test Windows 2000. Then I manually made a 55 GB partition as the second partition. Both of these were primary. When I installed Windows 7 it took over the first partition and made it it’s hidden boot partition. It didn’t ask it just did it. I haven’t yet figured out how to get window seven installed in just one partition.

Another possibility might be to make a primary fat 16 partition of very small size like 10 MB. Then make 100 MB partition. That install Windows 7 into 55 GB third partition. Also the window seven would use a second partition as its boot partition and leave the first partition alone. Then later you could resize the partition’s. 60 MB should be plenty for DOS.

“btw, OP, Dos 7?

That's not real dos.... that's Windows 95 without the Windows.......”

Yes the last version of MS-DOS was 6.22. A lot of people also used Quem 386 for memory management to run games. If you do a “ver” command in Windows 95 you see that the underlying DOS version is 7.

However there was an independent real DOS 7. It was IBM’s PC DOS 7 released in 1994. It had its own excellent memory management and worked a tad better than MS-DOS 6.66 + Quem 386. It’s current version is PC DOS 2000 and is available over@Amazon.com.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_DOS

the free DOS below can be burned down to a DVD so that gets around having to have the floppy thing.

Free DOS-compatible Operating Systems (MS-DOS/PC-DOS Clones)
http://www.thefreecountry.com/operating-systems/dos-compatible-and-clones.shtml

Free DOS
http://www.freedos.org/freedos/files
 
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But PC-DOS and MS-DOS are different beasts under the hood. I don't know if EasyBCD can dual-boot into PC-DOS.
 
Theoretically? Yes. Very nice idea, PoC!

Akash, you'll need to use the latest EasyBCD beta from EasyBCD 2.1 Beta Builds - The NeoSmart Forums because it has improvements to the Dos support.
moz-screenshot.png
Didn't see much difference between 2.02 and 2.1... Maybe I'm just not looking in the right place.

When I added the New Entry Dos 6.x (which I'm fine to use MSDOS 6.22) it comes up with this window:

EasyBCD.jpg
That's http://www.cccoach.com/EasyBCD.jpg

Clicking yes brings you to this page: DOS 6.x - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

Should I just wait for that page to get filled in? It's hopefully going to give instructions on how to get msdos.sys and io.sys in the right place for boot-ability.

Kinda scared to play around with Bootloader setup... is that a path?

I was hoping to get info from someone who has actually gone through this process. I'm guessing no one has.
 
Yes, that's it. EasyBCD *has* configured the dualboot, you just need to have DOS installed to a partition at the beginning of the drive. No software can do that for you automatically.
 
I booted from a floppy into dos 6.22 and formated the partition (at the front of the drive) with /s .... seemed to put it all in the right place but still can't boot into it. I must be missing a step... that's why I'm looking for a procedure list. I guess if no one has one I'll eventually figure it out and post it. But this sure is torturous.
 
The normal way to install DOS is from the DOS floppy install disks. However if you have a DOS 6 to boot disk you can boot to that and sys the C partition. Then the computer should boot up to C partition although there won’t be very many files there. The command is “ sys a: c: “
 
I had both formated with /s and tried sys C: many times. Command.com, MSDOS.sys and IO.sys are all there, but when I go to it from boot manager, it says Non-system disk error... as if I hadn't sys'd it. I started using DOS 2 when it first came out and was pretty facile in it when Windows came out. I'm pretty good at troublshooting and hacking.... so unless someone has actually done this I'm askin politely not to respond to this thread.

The "this" is Dual boot -win7 Dos (6.22 or 7.1) on a single drive, using EasyBCD, and any partitioning software that's yer favorite. My drive has a 2gig fat16 partition first, a scratch partition for win 7 (200mb) and the rest Windows 7.
 
Won't that break my ability to get into Windows 7?

Does installing the boot loader on the dos partition take care of that?

How do I tell in EasyBCD where the current bootloader is being accessed from? In the following example there are two c: drives

****************
Default: {current}
Timeout: 10 seconds
Boot Drive: C:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7 Pro 64
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Windows 7 Ultimate 32
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Microsoft DOS
BCD ID: {4aaa0507-258b-11e0-8605-001cc037f3c7}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\AutoNeoGrub0.mbr

*************

What's the grub reference about under the dos entry?
 
Hi,

I did this when I added this feature to EasyBCD. If you ran sys c: then you shouldn't need to do anything else.

The reference is because EasyBCD uses NeoGrub to fake the DOS partition being active, and as such the DOS partition does not need to be the active partition. It does need to be primary and not logical though.

One thing to try: use the official 2.0.1 release instead of 2.1 beta and see if deleting and re-adding a DOS entry with that version of EasyBCD works. It uses a different method altogether.
 
So here goes...
I had started out on 2.02. So far haven't seen many differences between 2.0.2 2.1 and 2.0.1 as far as results go.Just grub.

So here are the steps I took on the last go trying 2.0.1

Checked Disk Management. Win 7 partion is active. In EasyBCD View settings says:

There are a total of 3 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Windows 7 Ultimate 32
Timeout: 10 seconds
EasyBCD Boot Device: C:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7 Ultimate 32
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Microsoft DOS
BCD ID: {4aaa0507-258b-11e0-8605-001cc037f3c7}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\AutoNeoGrub0.mbr


Boot loader setup... Install BCD on Dos partition. Check View settings: says the same as above. Check Disk Management. Now Dos partition is active ( I didn't change it). Just for jollys, Write MBR ( Win 7/vista)

Deleted all entries under edit boot menu. Added all entries again. View Settings:

There are a total of 3 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Windows 7 Pro 64
Timeout: 10 seconds
EasyBCD Boot Device: C:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7 Pro 64
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Windows 7 Ultimate 32
BCD ID: {4aaa050d-258b-11e0-8605-001cc037f3c7}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Microsoft DOS
BCD ID: {4aaa050e-258b-11e0-8605-001cc037f3c7}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_dos.mbr

Reboot

Get this screen:
Bootmgr.jpg


Run repair from Win 7 install disk. no go

Install Win 7 on a second hard disk and use disk management to set Win partition on original disk to Active

Boots into Windows fine. Check View Settings. Reads the same as first list with autoNeoGrub in entry #3. When trying to boot into the dos partition, I just get grub.

I will say that at some point in my thrashing around, I did boot into Dos. But only directly - No boot manager list... and couldn't get Boot manager back through repair. So I know the partition is bootable if only I could get Boot manager to cooperate.

So now I've done all this beta testing for you Computer Guru. Would you please just pull out a fresh hard disk and make this work? And generate a step list? Make sure to start out with Windows installed first before creating the Dos partition.

Thanks

PS You'll notice I have two Windows partitions. They use each other as scratch disks. The Dos partition is still in the front. I thought maybe a fresh version of windows might make a difference. But no joy from either version.
 
There was a bug in the 2.1 beta builds that caused the "Windows failed to start" message to appear after (attempting?) booting into DOS/Windows 9x. This has been fixed in EasyBCD 2.1 build 134.

I have personally re-tested DOS support before yesterday by adding a new FAT32 partition after my Windows 7 partition, installing Windows ME to it, and adding a Windows 9x entry in EasyBCD.
 
Mahmoud,

Please forgive me for sounding dense but how does installing ME prove DOS support?

And DOS 6.22 only recognizes FAT16 at the front of the drive, right?

Akash

PS if yer in the Middle East please be careful. I support what's happening there but not at the expense of deleted techies.
 
Thanks, Akash.

Your original post says DOS7, which is either Windows 95 or Windows 98.

Regardless, DOS6 and DOS8 should dual-boot identically. I guess I could try out DOS 6 as well, but it shouldn't matter.

DOS 6.22 only supports FAT16, not FAT32. Again, it doesn't *need* to be the first partition, but it does need to be the first partition recognized by DOS and within the disk space limit known to DOS: within the first 2GB on the disk.

So to recap, a partition in the first 2GB on the disk, the partition should be under 512MB but it may work if larger, formatted to FAT16.
 
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