Yes, some companies had something like that even back then. It's not even hard to do. Create a dual-boot setup, one Live, one Recovery. Install all your stuff. Once done, boot the Recovery system and use a DOS tool like "Partition Image" (freeware) to dump your Live system partition as a file on the Recovery partition. That's it. Now you can boot the Recovery system and restore your Live system partition from the backup dump at any time.

derSammler wrote:

Yes, some companies had something like that even back then. It's not even hard to do. Create a dual-boot setup, one Live, one Recovery. Install all your stuff. Once done, boot the Recovery system and use a DOS tool like "Partition Image" (freeware) to dump your Live system partition as a file on the Recovery partition. That's it. Now you can boot the Recovery system and restore your Live system partition from the backup dump at any time.

I don't think the dos boot loader has the ability to load different versions of DOS from a different partition , So I think I need some sort of a boot manager? Which I am currently attempting to find one that does what I want to do.

What will be your main OS? There are many ways to do it. Of course, a boot manager is the easiest solution.

derSammler wrote:

What will be your main OS? There are many ways to do it. Of course, a boot manager is the easiest solution.

There is possibly going to be 2 OS, ms-dos 6.22 with WFW 3.11 and some version of windows 9x, either windows 95 OSR 2.5 or 98SE, not sure which . I do believe a boot manager would be easier to use as well.

It's not too hard to do without a separate boot manager. Take a look at http://www.mdgx.com/osr2.htm#2BOOT.

debs3759 wrote:

It's not too hard to do without a separate boot manager. Take a look at http://www.mdgx.com/osr2.htm#2BOOT.

thats not going to work, that's only for if you want ms-dos 6.22 and windows 9x on the same partition, I need separate partitions.

Partition Magic or similar is probably the easiest Norton Ghost was another round that era.

Good thing is Dos/Win9x is pretty simple/dumb. as long as io.sys rules are followed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IO.SYS then everything else doesn't really matter how its copped across/recovered

When i worked wih IT when i had a new customer i usually installed the os, all the drivers and supplement software(browsers,codecs,malware protection) and then resized the partition to the minimum size, and then cloned the partition into the same drive and expanded the clone, and made the small partition hidden.
So when they managed to ruin the os installation, i just pasted the hidden partition once again.

chinny22 wrote:

Partition Magic or similar is probably the easiest Norton Ghost was another round that era.

Good thing is Dos/Win9x is pretty simple/dumb. as long as io.sys rules are followed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IO.SYS then everything else doesn't really matter how its copped across/recovered

I'm thinking im going with an older version of norton ghost , I need an older version of Ghost, that needs installed to a separate DOS partition, newer versions after 8.0 or so , installs it in a folder, as a virtual partition in the C: drive , I want a separate partition, so that is why i'm going with an older version of norton ghost. But I still need to figure out which older version of ghost still has the separate partition.

If automating the process is not the absolute necessity, this is what I do :

First HDD: Make two primary partitions. For your case, a 2GB maximum FAT16 for MS-DOS 6.22+Windows 3.1x and another larger FAT32 partition for Windows 9x. For Windows 98 SE, the upper limit for this is practically 128GB, but there are patches around to make it up to TB levels, if you ever need to. For Windows 95 OSR2.x, suggested max is 32 or 64GB, I don't really remember which.

Second HDD: Again two primary partitions, just because I think it is more practical than an extended partition and logical drive. First a 2GB FAT16 partition for MS-DOS/Windows 9x data exchange, then a second 128GB (or less) partition fo backup storage, installation/setup files, drivers, program and game zip files, etc.

Now choose a multiboot app. for multi booting. I strongly suggest MasterBooter. It is a shareware program, but unregistered version have very few and not-so-important limitations and allow you to boot up to 3 different OSes. It also has all the tools for partitioning and formating. Comes as a bootable floppy and iso image and with an extensive help document, which are also a big plus.

After creating your vanilla DOS and W9x partitions, installing the OSes and making averything else installed and working, just create another boot floppy with an older version of Norton Ghost in it (I suggest 2003 or 2001) and backup your partition images to the larger partiiton in your second HDD.

You can also choose a larger single HDD and utilize the remaning space as a third partition (you can create up to 4 primary partitions on a given disk) to backup your partition images, but backing up partition images on the same physical HDD does not make much sense in my opinion.

MichaelWeaser wrote:

chinny22 wrote:

Partition Magic or similar is probably the easiest Norton Ghost was another round that era.

Good thing is Dos/Win9x is pretty simple/dumb. as long as io.sys rules are followed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IO.SYS then everything else doesn't really matter how its copped across/recovered

I'm thinking im going with an older version of norton ghost , I need an older version of Ghost, that needs installed to a separate DOS partition, newer versions after 8.0 or so , installs it in a folder, as a virtual partition in the C: drive , I want a separate partition, so that is why i'm going with an older version of norton ghost. But I still need to figure out which older version of ghost still has the separate partition.

As I said above, you don't need to "install" older versions of Ghost into "partitions". It is a single executable, GHOST.EXE. Copy it into a bootable floppy, and do whatever you want from there. Ghost 8.0 is 1.3MB so does not fit in a bootable floppy. I suggest 2003, or 2001, if you cannot find 2003.

tayyare wrote:

MichaelWeaser wrote:

chinny22 wrote:

Partition Magic or similar is probably the easiest Norton Ghost was another round that era.

Good thing is Dos/Win9x is pretty simple/dumb. as long as io.sys rules are followed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IO.SYS then everything else doesn't really matter how its copped across/recovered

I'm thinking im going with an older version of norton ghost , I need an older version of Ghost, that needs installed to a separate DOS partition, newer versions after 8.0 or so , installs it in a folder, as a virtual partition in the C: drive , I want a separate partition, so that is why i'm going with an older version of norton ghost. But I still need to figure out which older version of ghost still has the separate partition.

As I said above, you don't need to "install" older versions of Ghost into "partitions". It is a single executable, GHOST.EXE. Copy it into a bootable floppy, and do whatever you want from there. Ghost 8.0 is 1.3MB so does not fit in a bootable floppy. I suggest 2003, or 2001, if you cannot find 2003.

that is the way that I want it , I want a separate recovery partition that is DOS , with norton ghost. and than using a boot manager , will be using norton boot magic or another manager. and then have the image on the same partition that dos, norton ghost or whatever other disk cloning software I use.

I always used Ghost 7.5 CE as it was the most capable version that was still viable for floppies.

gdjacobs wrote:

I always used Ghost 7.5 CE as it was the most capable version that was still viable for floppies.

I was happy with 2003 and 2001 both, and thinking that they are better, since they are more recent 😊. I'll be to happy learn what makes 7.5 more capable, so I might be using that instead.

PS: I remember OS2 support has been deleted in later versions, but I'm not into OS2 anymore, so it does not concern me much.

MichaelWeaser wrote:

that is the way that I want it , I want a separate recovery partition that is DOS , with norton ghost. and than using a boot manager , will be using norton boot magic or another manager. and then have the image on the same partition that dos, norton ghost or whatever other disk cloning software I use.

I really think that having the recovery image in the same HDD that I supposed to be recovering in a disaster situation is a bit reckless, but of course, it is your system. 🤣

Mines are always in a separate HDD in the same system + in an external one, too.

tayyare wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

I always used Ghost 7.5 CE as it was the most capable version that was still viable for floppies.

I was happy with 2003 and 2001 both, and thinking that they are better, since they are more recent 😊. I'll be to happy learn what makes 7.5 more capable, so I might be using that instead.

PS: I remember OS2 support has been deleted in later versions, but I'm not into OS2 anymore, so it does not concern me much.

At the time, it was EXT3 support.

I just use Acronis with an external HDD hooked up via USB, works great for everything. Granted for old enough systems I have to pull the IDe drive and mount it on an external IDE cage and clone over but it just works, and because my backup is on a seperate 4TB hard drive with all other system images i don't have to worry about if my HDD dies totally that I've lost the backup