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For the DOS dinosaurs.......

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by cp7212 1 view

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I'm sure this is from Microsoft's plan to rid the world of DOS. I formatted a floppy (in XP Pro) to create a MS-DOS boot disk, as spyware has overrun a client's PC and will not boot into safe mode. However, when the boot disk runs, it comes up to an A:> prompt. I have never run a DOS disk in Win XP Pro before. Where are the tools?!? It does not recognize any drive but A:. It considers the C: drive as unrecognizable. Does anyone know how I can make a tools disk out of the floppy? I don't have a bootable CD and the time it would take to get one, I could reimage it by then. Just looking for a quick fix to rmdir two directories in Program Files. Thanks for any info.

5 replies

by sgt_shultz

probably it is because the file system on the xp box is ntfs and dos you are running on the floppy can't read ntfs. you may have some luck using a win98 startup floppy if xp is fat32 but i bet not.
the directions for making an ntfs boot floppy are on support.microsoft.com. you need access to another xp box to copy certain files. it is easy. i think your format the floppy on the ntbox then copy over a few files over. then you can delete the folders you want. it is good to know how to do and have ready.
what about booting from xp install cd and letting setup find old install and repair it?

by cp7212

Yes, the file system is NTFS. I was being naive and looking for that ever elusive quick fix. I just don't understand why they even have the option to make a DOS disk if it isn't going to work. Oh yeah, it's Microsoft. Like who is going to run XP Pro in FAT32? I should have known the NTFS vs. FAT32 issue, but thanks for the refresher.

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