How To Boot To Command Prompt

Ok .. Heres a weird one. I have a laptop and no floppy drive, I want to boot up to command prompt so i can manually use the format command (Vista RC1 would keep your old windows files as "windows.old" and occoupy that much of space).Is there a way i could make a cd thats similar to a Start-up Disk ?RegardsDhanesh.

couldn't you just keep hitting F8 to get to the advanced boot options and select it to boot the at command prompt?xboxrulz

Start > Programs > MS-DOS

Ya but the whole point is that he neds to format his harddrive not enter dos and get a restricted windows message. Alright, if you have a Windows XP cd then you can boot that run it, format the drive, and right before it starts copying files over shut of your computer. A second way is downloading BartPE and adding a DOS APP. You will be able to format your drive since you are not using it. Also, doesn't vista offer a format option when you boot of the CD? When i tried it, i booted my computer with it and wiped by drive. Sorry solving physics

Ok .. Heres a weird one. I have a laptop and no floppy drive, I want to boot up to command prompt so i can manually use the format command (Vista RC1 would keep your old windows files as "windows.old" and occoupy that much of space).
Is there a way i could make a cd thats similar to a Start-up Disk ?

Regards
Dhanesh.

If you just want to boot then format, grab a copy of bootdisk from

http://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Win98se should do. Then use nero or your favourite cd burning burning software to create a bootable cd "CD-ROM (Boot)". Under the boot tab (refering to nero, other software might have different name, but should be similiar), select image file, that browse for the image you just download. Put in any other file you want to appear along in the cd. Then burn. That's it.

If you don't have a burner but have a spare thumbdrive, then you can try USB boot, provided if you laptop support it. You'll need winimage (or other free tools, to dump the image to your thumdrive), the same image and syslinux. This method works for me on my twinhead notebook with apacer 128MB thumbdrive or kingstone 1GB traveller, might or might not works in your case. But it's worth a try, you can always reformat you thumbdrive.

Get syslinux from here -> http://freecode.com/projects/syslinux/

First use winimage to create a backup of your thumbdrive. You'll need to do this cause when you dump the image, sometime you'll loose the full size of the thumbdrive, cause the partition table is overwritten. After backup, open the image file you downloaded, then write into your thumbdrive. After that, get to cmd or ms-dos prompt, run "syslinux F:" without the quote and subsitute "F:" with the drive letter of your thumdrive.
That's it, now reboot your laptop, it should boot into dos, and you thumbdrive will appear as A: or B: depending on the bios. If it doesn't work, or hang half way during bootup, try run syslinux with "-s"

Hope i didn't miss out anything. If you google, you should find a lot other similiar tutorial, i learned from there too. Anyway, the boot cd is less hassle comparing to usb boot. So, unless you're adventurous, try the boot cd method first

Good luck

couldn't you just keep hitting F8 to get to the advanced boot options and select it to boot the at command prompt?

From my experience you cannot format the system Drive if you from windows command prompt. You must boot from original DOS to format your Windows System Drive.

I think you can use NERO to create a bootable disk. But I forgot the step since I remove my NERO from my computer. The step is easy I think.

The second choice is by using a USB drive to boot to DOS. Right click your USB drive>Choose properties>Mark Create an MS-DOS System Disk>Click Format. Or Start>Run>cmd at command prompt type "format x: /s" (where x is your usb drive letter and off course without quote). Option /s is to make DOS system file. Then set your BIOS to boot from USB drive.

The third choice is using Linux LIVE CD. First mount your drive to some directory, then just type "sudo rm -dfr /your_windows_drive". I think the third choice is better way because you didn't need to format your hard drive. Formatting drive to often is not recommended.

Hope helps!

Hi masterio,

From my experience you cannot format the system Drive if you from windows command prompt. You must boot from original DOS to format your Windows System Drive.

You're right bout this.

The second choice is by using a USB drive to boot to DOS. Right click your USB drive>Choose properties>Mark Create an MS-DOS System Disk>Click Format. Or Start>Run>cmd at command prompt type "format x: /s" (where x is your usb drive letter and off course without quote). Option /s is to make DOS system file. Then set your BIOS to boot from USB drive.

Just friendly reminder, the "/s" for format is no longer possible from ms-dos prompt since win2k. If you still have access to winme or win98, then formatting is as simple as boot up with F8 and skip the loading of windows to goto "pure" dos-prompt. Which i believe dhanesh doesn't have such option available.

No offense masterio.

boot from your regular XP cd and open a recovery console. there's your command prompt.

I think he can use Windows XP Installation CD and use the Recovery Console, that is the best and easiest way.Only problem is that you must have a Windows XP installation CD with you.

boot from your regular XP cd and open a recovery console. there's your command prompt.

'Question, why does every single one of your repeat the same thing over and over again. Its really sounds like a broken record. Its true any of the solutions work above including mine which was mentioned up above.

'Question, why does every single one of your repeat the same thing over and over again. Its really sounds like a broken record. Its true any of the solutions work above including mine which was mentioned up above.

Because people expand on the original solution. Plus it's not necessary to switch the computer off right after it formats. he was going to format it anyways with Vista.

This way might be a bit complicated, but if you can install windows on a second drive, or external hard drive, then boot off that, you can format the disk that way?

Best solutionKnight17I think he can use Windows XP Installation CD and use the Recovery Console, that is the best and easiest way.Only problem is that you must have a Windows XP installation CD with youAlternative:BARTPE preinstall windows you run windows from the cd and do enityng to your hard drive http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ by Nuno Miguel Pote Antunes

I know that doing this with a CD is a lot easier (and more universally accepted by 100% of computers) than the following method, but I thought I would throw out the idea.

I formatted my computer, but didn't write any data to it (due to a glitch in windows install, don't get me started...). I recovered it with a bootable USB key that attempts to emulate a floppy drive, so it can be booted to (if the bios supports the booting to USB). I know that what we use at work is an HP utility, but I don't have the application to do that or the dos file the HP program requires.

Here's the crash course on how this works, and how you CAN NOT create this free hand with Windows Explorer. The computer needs to find a MBR on the drive that you are booting to (like the flash drive) and it needs to have the only partition to be set as the default to boot from. This will just get the computer to look at it, but its useless if there is nothing that the BIOS can use and run anything with. You will need the files to run DOS, which are easiest if you can steal a bootable floppy drive. This isn't an option for most of us, so since this is as far as I can get. It didn't take me long to decide I wanted to do this without stealing things from work. I will dirrect you here: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Good luck, happy booting!

PS: If anyone gets a bootable flash drive, I used Test Disk to recover all the data off of a formatted drive. It bypasses partition tables, and looks at the file start/stop bits. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk - official site

what to do with a floppy that boots to msdosHow To Boot To Command Prompt

I have a pc that I got from a friend. I have no xp cd's.   So I decided to create a bootable floppy in case my pc doesn't boot up some time.   Anyway when I created it, the option was to create an ms dos boot disk.   Presumably if my pc goes down and I boot from this floppy, I will get an ms dos prompt.   What do I do then to get xp to appear ?? 

Help pls.

Thanks

kathleen

-reply by kathleen