Boot to C: prompt

[Buzioid]

Anyone know how to make a HD boot to a C: prompt? All I have is a dual boot system with XP on one partition, and noting on the other. I need to know what files to copy/modify because I can not use floppy or cdrom to do this. I have bootmagic 8.0 to use for choosing the 2 partitions.

[originel]

well you can't boot to a c: in windows XP because XP isn't based on DOS (like 95,98, and ME were). you can bring up a console in windows XP which has the exact same functionality (plus a few other things, and minus direct hardware access). if you want to run just DOS, you can do a search online for it. there are places everywhere with MS DOS 6.22 (the last real version) for download plus a few other version (drdos and freedos come to mind). they are separate OS and you'll have to install them accordingly. if you do make sure to keep your bootmagic disk handy cause i think the MBR will be overwritten by dos and you will need it to get back into windows. hope that helps

[Buzioid]

I meant boot the other partition with nothing on it to C: prompt.

[originel]

sorry, the c: prompt is in and of itself an operating system (DOS). you have to boot something when you startup.

i guess you could use a dos startup disk. they've got some over at www.bootdisk.com. you wouldn't have very much functionality though

[nukes]

Get a win98 cd or boot disk, boot from it, format the drive using "format c: /q /s" (presuming the blank drive is C:\ and has already been formatted, if it is a bare DOS partition, then the /q won't work.
Then set bootmagic to bot that partition.

[originel]

interesting, i never knew about the /s switch.

after reading http://www.csulb.edu/~murdock/format.html

/q is a quick format
/s copies the DOS OS files over to the hard drives.