How can I restart in DOS with XP?

DellAxim

Gawd
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Feb 14, 2003
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I have a laptop running windows XP with no floppy drive and I won't have the CD drive for about a week. I need to restart into DOS...is there any way for me to do it?
 
Either the dos prompt from your menu to run stuff, or I'd guess rebooting to the recovery console is pretty close.
 
Originally posted by ZenPirate
Either the dos prompt from your menu to run stuff, or I'd guess rebooting to the recovery console is pretty close.

Won't work from a dos prompt...how do I "reboot to a recover console"?
 
If memory serves right while it's booting press F8 then you can get to command.
 
if you could tell us what you're trying to do we may be able to provide alternatives
 
Originally posted by Jgedeon
If memory serves right while it's booting press F8 then you can get to command.

Nope, no option there. I'm trying to run dell's diagnostics, which only run in dos...
 
Thats strange I just tried it and there is an option there for Start windows in Safe mode with Command Prompt.
 
Originally posted by Jgedeon
Thats strange I just tried it and there is an option there for Start windows in Safe mode with Command Prompt.

All that does is bring up XP to a cmd window first, I believe you still have the desktop in the background. DellAxim, the Recovery Console has to be installed to access it form the F8 menu. Since you didn't install it while windows was functional you have to get to it using the other method. Boot off a Win2k or XP cd and start the install process. At the very first screen one of the options is to repair your exisiting install, choose that. This will startup into the Recovery Console which isn't quite DOS but does have a bunch of tools that may help you with whatever you are doing. Don't confused this repair prompt with the one that comes later during the install. This one should be at the first screen where it asks you for input.
 
as someone who works for Windows XP support for Microsoft I will tell you what we tell our customers:

Windows 98 startup/boot floppy. Bang..you're in dos
 
If you restart in safe mode with command prompt it'll give you sorta dos. but you can do that from within windows anyways. You're pretty much out of luck without a floppy drive.
 
Originally posted by cyberphox
as someone who works for Windows XP support for Microsoft I will tell you what we tell our customers:

Windows 98 startup/boot floppy. Bang..you're in dos

Yeah, if you'll read the first post, the whole point of this post was that I don't have a floppy or a CD rom at the moment...
 
Well, considering XP does not run on DOS, the answer is quite simple: you can't. ME was the last one you could get to DOS from.
 
Well, you could pull the hard disk out, put it in a dell with a floppy, and put dos on it, but yeah, your pretty much out of luck.
 
To get recovery console there's 2 things you can do.

Boot from the XP CD, go through the prompts, until it asks you if you want to repair, and select recovery console.

The other method is

From your Windows XP cd, in a command prompt (or from run), run winnt32 /cmdcons

It'll install it and you'll have that option to go into recovery console when you boot (boot menu).

Cheers,

Mr. Pain
 
No floppy or CD rom? No repair console installed. Your SOL as far as i know. Spend 8 bucks and get a floppy hooked up. Go to a friends and go to bootdisk.com and download a 98se boot disk, if you cant make one. And bam, there ya go.
 
eh i musta missed that it was a lappy.

Begg, borrow, steal the drives that you need.
or
just be patient untill your drive arivres.
 
Yeah... pretty much hosed, unless you can find yourself an adapter to hook the lappy HDD up to a working desktop w/ CD or floppy.
 
Um, if it's a recent laptop, spend a few bucks to get a USB floppy (OfficeMax is selling a "maddog" brand for $19 and a $10 MIR, totalling $9), then boot off of floppy.

All it takes is being aware of options.
 
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