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Dos ?

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by theword

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Hi.
I have been experimenting with troubleshooting on windows 98. I backed up, then renamed the msdos.sys file. It didnt bootup like I expected, but gave me a command prompt. Now when I gave the command DIR, it only gave me about10 directories and some files. My renamed msdos.sys file wasnt listed, but was there, none the less. I used the command...type... to find it. I tried... dir /p ...and other commands, but I cant figure out how to show the renamed file, and all the others that are there.Can you tell me how?
Thanks.................Pat

7 replies

by teraine.stewart

ah, golden rule of computer troubleshooting, before you try to change the name of files make sure you have backup the files. You have to show the attributes, use the help command to show the correct command path. good luck on your trouble shooting

by cnlson

dir *.* /ah/as/ar/p
ah is all hidden
as is all system
ar is all read only
p pauses on a per screen full

once you know the name in order to rename it or change it in dos you will need to attrib the file
ex: attrib filename.ext -h -s -r
thisremoves all the hidden system and read only attributes and will allow you to access the file
windows will reattrib the file after you have gotten back into windows

good luck!

by theword

Good enough..........With those commands, I was able to find all the files, but with grief. They only show as individual units with those commands. How can you show all the files on one page with one command? I am used to Linux. Those commands allow you such....Thanks...........

by jereg

MSDOS.SYS is a REQUIRED file, as is IO.SYS. If you've renamed the file, your PC won't work correctly. Command, IO and MSDOS are the 3 files that must be there for DOS to work. That said, the easiest way to fix you PC is to find a boot disk somewhere, (you must have one somewhere), and copy the msdos.sys back onto yourc: drive. That should get you up and running.
Good Luck.

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