Re: OT: DOS booting

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Michael wrote:
> > Wow, looks very interesting. Have you used it?
> > BTW, it solves only half the problem: "NTFS file system. FAT16/FAT32 is
> > not supported." I can probably find some other way to get the FAT16
> > support I need.
> No, not yet, Harry, but I like the option of just keeping a snapshot of
> the OS.

Why is that better than System Restore?
>  I'm a little confused about why you'd need FAT on the partition that
> holds XP. I understand you want to be able to boot from a floppy/CD to
> DOS because...well I lost that part. Anyway I'm still reading about FAT
> versus NTFS.
I have an old program that compiles source files in BASIC to .EXE files.
It's from the '80s. I used it to write my program that translates my
"XyBasic" into XPL. I can't update it because the BASIC compiler from the
80s requires FAT16. The FAT16 files don't have to be on the C: drive, which
is NTFS. I can format my thumb drive as FAT16. But so far no success at
getting the required combo right: booting from DOS, seeing the thumb drive,
and running Xy (to go back and forth between the BASIC source and the
compiler in the process of updating). The one CD I can boot for that can
both see the thumb drive and boot DOS apparently has its CONFIG.SYS lacking
the Files= and Buffers= statements, so--get this--it can load Xy, but then
I can't open any file in Xy because it can only work with one file loaded
(i.e., Xy) at a time!
> If you've burned an image of HD and you've also got a snapshot of your OS
> and you're regularly backing up your data/pics and so forth to hard media,
> seems like you be covered three ways to Sunday.
You'd think so, wouldn't you? I have everything backed up on an external
USB drive, but I can't boot into non-Windows and copy anything from the
external drive over to the C: drive, to fix damaged system files, like
shell32.dll, because nothing I have can *write* to NTFS.
If I had more money, here's what I'd do: buy two identical laptops and use
one of them for backup. If worse came to worse, I'd either junk the failed
one or send it away to somewhere for repairs, and continue working,
uninterrupted, on the second laptop.
> Michael Norman


Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx