Re: Windows XP PC question
From: Michael Stevens (mstevens_at_bogusmvps.org)
Date: 12/12/04
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Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 01:43:07 -0800
John wrote:
> Do newer PC's yes with XP still have DOS instructions written on their
> BIOS chip? I have not tried it yet, but is it possible to wipe out XP
> on a newer Dell or whatever and get back to a plain DOS prompt? Most
> PC people claim that XP/2000 whatever does not have any DOS below its
> OS like Windows 98 or have any DOS instructions on its ROM BIOS chip
> but I do not believe it. I have not tried inserting a DOS boot
> floppy, and testing it for myself. In my 98 machine I can boot from
> a floppy, wipe out the hard drive, partition and then do a format C:
> /s and the machine will boot with only DOS. I wonder if XP works the
> same.
>
> I guess my main comparison would be the classic Mac OS which is full
> GUI and no command prompt. On my Mac for exmaple, I can wipe out the
> hard drive with my boot CD, and then install the boot files with the
> CD and the Mac boots into a GUI. I doubt XP is a full GUI and does
> not have command prompt instructions in BIOS, but perhaps I am wrong.
> I doubt PC's can ever move away from any DOS instructions in their
> ROM BIOS, but maybe I am wrong.
>
>
> John
The BIOS has nothing to do with the installed OS.
XP does not have DOS, but you can boot from a floppy disk formatted as
MS-DOS and run commands. MS-DOS will have limited access depending on the
hard drive or partition file system. If the hard drive or partition are
non-dos partitions, the only thing you can do with the MS-DOS floppy disk is
run fdisk to delete the NON-DOS partition.
Note that the MS-DOS disk created from XP format does not contain fdisk or
format, it is a minimal boot disk suited for flashing BIOS.
-- Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP xpnews@bogusmichaelstevenstech.com http://michaelstevenstech.com For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader. http://michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm
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