DOS-type boot enviroment w/ NTFS support?

So the Windows Millenium Emergency Startup Disk that I have been relying on all these years needs retiring. Not only does it not support NTFS, but it doesn't support SATA, so now I have no drives except my floppy show up in "DOS". I need some kind of OS that I can boot from a floppy, has NTFS (and preferably SATA) support, and works similarly to the WinME startup disk. Any ideas?

not looked there recently but try www.bootdisk.com or try looking up knoppix

Since I just used my ME floppy for "disk conditioning" like setting partitions and formatting and such, I use the MaxBlast3 disk from Maxtor (dload at maxtor.com). I have Maxtor drives, but most drive makers have one that's eerily similar. My IBM disk utilities look exactly the same...when you exit the utility, you're left in a DOS environment that knows where the drives are (at least for the short time that I played with it there).
*MS Dos programs might not work here though, as the disk utilities use Caldera Dos.


BTW, since it's by the drive maker, it don't care about SATA, Raid, NTFS or nothing, it sees all. A must have bootable diskette, I've even made a backup copy of that sits in the back of my drawer for emergencies.

Tried the Ultimate Boot CD? More like a huge, extremely useful collection of diagnostic programs, but I believe you can boot into a dos shell and a couple linux distros as well. I work as a tech, and it's extremely useful to have all those hard disk, and memory diagnostics together in the same place. There's also partitionerss, file managers, and tons of other programs:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

ive tried it, but I dont really like it...too much information, not enough time to look through it all...

Not sure how to get access to sata drives from dos, but ntfs should work:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdos.shtml

If you use the windows XP cd, after it initially loads the blue screen you have the option to enter the recovery console. This gives command line access to the operating system.

^^ but you cant run executables from it except the ones that are preloaded.

In your situation you dont many options. I ran into a problem that i needed replace a file under the windows folder on my ntfs drive (it was ide) winlogin.exe and i couldnt find a program that could MOUNT and WRITE to a ntfs drive. Although i did find one after about a week of searching. NTFSDOS Professional 5.0 is its name...its hard to find on the internet if you are going to search for it. I dont know if it can mount sata - i dont believe it can. Good luck

You could also get the latest version of knoppix (boot-from-cd-linux). It is suppose to support safe ntfs read/write. I haven't tested it myself cuz I don't have a safe environment for testing.
Maybe tomorrow....

Just make a boot CD with Nero using the default boot image. It allows access to NTFS.

You should get a copy of pebuilder from http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
It will allow you to make a "Windows Live CD" (Really easy)
You will have NATIVE NTFS access, and you can add just about any program to it.
I have one with most raid, network driver as well as a few net browsers and Symantec Ghost.
It is really a valuable tool!

Engjohn