bjwil1991 wrote:

Currently, I have MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 95C installed on a 2GB CF card, and FAT16 makes Windows 95C run slower than my 10GB We […]
Show full quote

Currently, I have MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 95C installed on a 2GB CF card, and FAT16 makes Windows 95C run slower than my 10GB Western Digital HDD.

My question is: would it be possible to have MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 95C on separate hard drive partitions or would that be impossible?

I'm planning on using a 4GB CF card or a smaller sized hard drive (3.2GB Quantum Fireball* or 10GB Western Digital) with the following partitions, provide if the fdisk command allows me to format my 4GB CF card with separate partitions:

4GB CF Card
1) 1.5GB storage for MS-DOS 6.22, drivers, and games (FAT16)
2) 2.5GB storage for Windows 95C (FAT32)

3.2 Quantum Fireball*
1) 1.2GB storage for MS-DOS 6.22, drivers, and games (FAT16)
2) 2.0GB storage for Windows 95C (FAT32)

10GB Western Digital
1) 2GB partition for MS-DOS 6.22, drivers, and games (FAT16)
2) 8GB partition for Windows 95C (FAT32)

*Provide if this HDD will work or not (will have to smoke test it again later on)

I know I have to rename some of the files in the MS-DOS 6.22 partition as follows:

io.sys as io.dos
command.com as command.dos
config.sys as config.dos
autoexec.bat as autoexec.dos
msdos.sys (attrib -r -h -s) as msdos.dos (attrib +r +h +s)

If I posted in the wrong spot, feel free to move this at anytime.

The PC in question is my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus with the following specifications:

CPU: Intel i486 DX4-100 OverDrive
RAM: 32MB SIMM-72 FPM
FDD: Epson SD-800 Dual Floppy Drive (A: 3.5" 1.44MB B: 5.25" 1.2MB)
HDD: SanDisk 2GB CF card (CF-IDE adapter) FAT16
ODD: Apple/Matsushita 32x CD-ROM (acting wonky and hardly works, will replace with a CR-563-B CD-ROM for better period correctness)
OS: MS-DOS 6.22 + Windows 95C
L2 Cache: 0KB (doesn't work very well as the L2 cache I have isn't working right)
PSU: 195W AT PSU that still works (will swap with an ATX PSU and purchase an ATX-AT w/ -5VDC & dummy load (3.3V) adapter)
Sound0: PC Speaker
Sound1: Lo-Tech Tandy 3-Voice Compatible Sound Card
Sound2: Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 CT2740 DSP 4.11 (CT1747 bus + OPL) and Yamaha DB50XG GM/XG Daughterboard
Sound3: keropi's Music Quest MPU-401 clone card for my Roland MT-32
Network: 3Com EtherLink III 3C509-TP with an XT-IDE Universal BIOS boot ROM for bigger storage drives
Motherboard: PB450

It is completely possible - look at the rig in my sig, 5 OSes each in its own partition 8including MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 95). You don't need to change / rename the system files at all. You just need to use a multiboot utility. The one I use is Mastrebooter but there are numerous others around.

By the way, if your motherboard BIOS allows you to boot from both first and second HDDs you can just do without a multiboot utility but that will probably be impractical.

Actually it is possible to mimic manually what a multibooter does (adjust the parition you want to boot from as active and make the other partition hidden) but doing this each time you want to boot from the other partiiton is even less practical.

Or use a boot manager, such as Plop Boot or other items along the way?

I recently replied to a similar topic and, back in the day, I dual booted between DOS 6.22 & Windows 95C using OS/2's Boot Manager (from OS/2 Warp 3).
However, I soon realised that there is no real benefit to have both DOS 6.22 & Windows 95C on the same system.

Why not just create a start up menu configuration under Windows 95C and boot up straight into DOS 7.1?
Refer this topic for more information on how to do this: How to create a boot (start up) menu under Windows 9x/ME

Come to think of it, that sounds like a better solution. I've done that before to boot between Windows 98SE and its DOS version (7.10) without issues, except some drivers and programs only run in DOS, except editing the msdos.sys file for the first 3 lines makes it work without issues.

System Commander will do what you want easily. Install DOS first as usual and then install system Commander... then use it to partition and install 95.

Even without any 3rd party boot managers it's possible. The only thing that must be on the primary partition is the Win9x boot files - the rest of the OS can be anywhere.

Of course then we can get back to the question why the hell someone needs to dual-boot DOS and Windows 9x, but this appears to be a sick hobby many VOGONS members share. 😉

I once got MS-DOS 7.10 and Windows XP Pro SP3 on the same drive, different partitions on a 120GB SATA HDD connected to a VIA VT6421a SATA PCI controller and it did work without issues on my old AMD K6/2-300 machine.