Um, help?

I would try GPartEd in Linux instead, but even if you did that, there's no guarantee that DOS would like it.

MS-DOS is, of course, limited to 2 GB FAT16 partitions. (4 GB FAT16 partitions are possible, but are highly specialized and highly inefficient.)

Setting up the DOS boot sector might be unusually tricky. You'd probably have to find some way to copy the boot sector (and IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS) from an existing MS-DOS hard disk image floating around the Internet; I'm not even sure the floppy versions would work.

dos boot floppy
format c:
sys c:

make sure sys.com is on the floppy

Possible. 😎

- http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm to format FAT32 or FAT16 from XP or later
- A .VHD virtual hard disk file of an installed windows 9x/DOS
- Winimage

At Winimage, Disk - Use disk <drive letter>: - Restore virtual hard disk image on psychical drive

This destroys all data on that drive, by overwriting it with the VHD image file.

Set that HDD to boot device from bios if you want DOS/Win9x.

This util can be handy, too.

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

second (or third, or forth) partition must also begin at new cyclinders not in the middle of it, otherwise DOS wont like it.

Older version of partition magic (before the company was accquired) can also format 2GB or less partition into FAT16.

Davros wrote:

dos boot floppy format c: sys c: […]
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dos boot floppy
format c:
sys c:

make sure sys.com is on the floppy

Actually, that's what I'm trying to avoid, since the hard disk is already attached as secondary hard disk in my modern desktop PC. Making the hard disk bootable from inside Windows XP is more convenient.

Jorpho wrote:

Setting up the DOS boot sector might be unusually tricky. You'd probably have to find some way to copy the boot sector (and IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS) from an existing MS-DOS hard disk image floating around the Internet; I'm not even sure the floppy versions would work.

Yup. I already have an MS-DOS bootable CD. I'm looking for a way to transfer its boot sector (and IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS) into a freshly formatted hard drive in Windows XP.

Skoynay wrote:

Possible. :cool: […]
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Possible. 😎

- http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?guiformat.htm to format FAT32 or FAT16 from XP or later
- A .VHD virtual hard disk file of an installed windows 9x/DOS
- Winimage

At Winimage, Disk - Use disk <drive letter>: - Restore virtual hard disk image on psychical drive

This destroys all data on that drive, by overwriting it with the VHD image file.

Set that HDD to boot device from bios if you want DOS/Win9x.

This util can be handy, too.

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

Interesting, thanks! 😀

I also found this nice utility called Rufus, but the description says the software is to create bootable MS-DOS flash drive. Does it also work on ordinary hard drive?

If I'm not mistaken, one or both of IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS have to be located in specific sectors of the drive as well.

There are numerous ways to make a CD bootable, as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Torito_%28CD-ROM_standard%29 ; your bootable CD may just contain an ordinary floppy image.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Actually, that's what I'm trying to avoid, since the hard disk is already attached as secondary hard disk in my modern desktop PC.

Hmm maybe I'm misunderstanding the question, but all you need to do is boot from UBCD (on the modern desktop), fdisk that second disk and then format it with the /s command.

You would still need to select the active partition on the other computer as this might stuff up your XP system...

Also you better make sure that none of the XP system files are on that secondary hard disk. Windows sometimes does this 😀