How to get in DOS?

Like the title says, I've been struggling with this since yesterday without any result so I'll ask from the wisers.

The case is here, I'm in need to flash bios for one nvidia card and I don't have (don't ask why) floppy drive, usb memory stick nor CD-RW drive in use so I have to work another way around this to get me in DOS mode.

So I took one spare harddrive I had around, formatted it and set to use FAT -partition with Partition Magic 8.0, now the case is that I cannot get it to DOS no matter what I've been trying to do this far.

All the suggestions are welcome

Try installing dos on the drive. Something like freedos should do the trick:
http://www.freedos.org/
It's a free MSDOS compatible OS.

I've tried that few times already but it doesn't want to co-operate (I actually tried that few times before too but with different files). Too bad I don't have CD-RW drive to use so I can't burn any images to CD nor can't use floppy at all.

Still, any other suggestions ?

What sort of cooperation problems are you haveing? Have you tried using a bootlaoder like grub?

Used Partition Magic to format whole harddrive and made it to use FAT(16) -partition (Primary & Active). After this I gathered needed files there and used bootloader but only thing I got was blinking text indicator on the top left corner (maybe something missing from autoexec.bat / config.sys?).

I use a USB key for all DOS stuff. Really great for flashing and transferring files from the bench drive.

El<(')>Maxi said:

I use a USB key for all DOS stuff. Really great for flashing and transferring files from the bench drive.

Click to expand...

That's on eof the things he doesn't have. Look at the first post.

I'm a bit out of my depth here, I'm more of a linux guy myself. I have some links that may help, though.

FreeDOS installation alongside windows XP:
http://www.k1ea.com/hints/fdinst091.pdf
(but, you need a cd burner to do this)

If you have a copy of MSDOS 6.22, try this guide:
http://www.k1ea.com/hints/dual_boot.htm

Here is a discuaaion about dual booting with dos:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic9130.html

His trouble is he has no boot medium to install DOS with... So unless he finds one, either floppy, CD or usb stick, he won't ever be able to boot into DOS

If he has a fresh harddisk, and the IO.sys and MSDOS.sys and command.com he could do it by handediting a bootsector with a hex editor. but that's it: format that old harddisk. make a single primary partition. copy the following things in that order on it : io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com. Then edit the first sector of that partition adding the bootloader program. But make sur not to overwrite the filesystem information starting at byt 2 or so, basically ignore the first 40h or so bytes. Then set that partition as drive C: and boot from it.

A real Rube Goldberg approach. WOuld be easier to get a old Win9x CD from somewhere...

I'll try later does that trick of klingens work, too busy at the moment.

Thanks for you all but I found a working way to do it

what did you do?

Used Partition Magic 8.0 to format and set harddrive to use FAT (16-bit) partition, set it to Primary and Active. Zip file including all the files from Win98 startup disk, and unzipped it to empty harddrive. After this I had to remove IDE cable from main harddrive and just boot up computer.