Question to you all,

I have a computer running windows XP, now I want to add a "real" DOS enviroment on the computer (not cmd or dosbox or something like that).
So I thought dualboot will do the trick, but the problem is, if I go on and install dos on my free harddisk, I will have a problem cause it f*cks up my boot process and windows xp will not start anymore. That I dont want!
Anyone got an idea on how i can install dos so I can multiboot between windows xp and dos without formatting my windows drive, install dos and then reinstall windows?

Any help would be greatly appreciated..

Ramon.

um well im guessing you want Dos to just play around with etc, if you have the cash i would segest you get yourself a copy of virtual PC, great program and if you dont have too much running and a desent amout of ram it doenst take too much of a performance hit. that way its totally seperate and if you seriously screw something up in dos then at worst you ahve to delete the virtual machien..... i have had 2 copies of XP running because my main one was buged with its 16bit dos processes and although it took a while to install i didnt see to much of a problem. they say you need 256mb of ram for the amin and then 128mb for each virtual after that but i would segest 512 for the real and 256mb if you want to run anything fast... although dos isnt as bloatware infected as most other things... hope that helped and sory for the bump

well,only what you want is the dos os,which can boot as well when some problem with your xp.actually windows xp offer dos environment and you needn't to install an additional dos os.you can easily to make a boot disk to boot your computer to dos environment,to your familar window:C:/.if you have used Recovery Console of your xp,you will know how to make an boot disk.

thanx for your answers, I will consider the vmware once again. I've had some compatibility problems with it. But maybe its fixable.

people still use DOS? Anyways, it's impossible to dualboot DOS and WinXP, try FreeDOS though.

http://www.freedos.org/

xboxrulz

Impossible? HA! It is possible, but probably more trouble than it is worth.

Here is how I suggest you can do it.

Firstly you need 2 hard drives.
Secondly your motherboard must have a recent BIOS (about 1998 or newer)

First when you install winXP make sure only 1 of your 2 hard drives is actually connected phisically inside your computer. Then install winXP normally.

Second, disconnect your winXP hard drive inside your computer, then connect the hard drive you want DOS installed to. Install DOS normally.

After you have installed both DOS and winXP on seperate drives you can connect both hard drives again inside your computer. Once this is done you have a sort of "virtual" dual boot. To boot to each OS you have to enter your BIOS as your computer starts up. This is usually done by pressing DEL on your keyboard as your BIOS info is displayed on th screen.(some systems are different look at your documentation that came with your computer) After you enter the BIOS, look for a menu called BOOT ORDER. The default is usually like this:

FIRST DEVICE: Floppy
SECOND DEVICE: CDROM
THIRD DEVICE: C Drive

Now if your BIOS is new enough you can change the third device to: D Drive.
This will allow your computer to boot from the second hard drive in your computer.
To boot from your other drive again, just go back to your BIOS and change the third device back.

That is about it!

Windows XP (as well as all other NT-based Windows operating systems) utilizes the NTFS file system, and uses it by default - whereas DOS (and Windows 9x/ME) operate on FAT16 (and in later cases, FAT32). So if you are using DOS, it won't be able to interact with the volume that Windows XP is installed on at all, assuming it is NTFS, unless you use third-party commercial software (such as NTFSDOS Pro).

As zippy77 has pointed out, it is really more trouble than it's worth. If you absolutely need to use DOS, it would probably be better to purchase a cheap second computer such as a 486 - which you usually can pick up for under $20 - to run DOS, whilst leaving the other with only XP.

why on earth would you want to dual-boot DOS?

Thanx again for all the answers, I've used the tip above to disconnect the hd containing the xp installation, then installed dos on the second, only I dont use the bios to switch but edited the boot.ini file to make a choice while booting. It works like a charm, thanx...
And why, just because its fun to see if it is possible, and i want to run a dos enviroment without using things like virtual machines and so on.