Windows NT - boot to dos

[amohongos]

Here's the situation:

The company I work for recently acquired a bunch of ancient pc's with windows nt installed. We need to boot directly to dos, but nt's bootloader program pops up when the computer boots and doesn't give dos as an option. I tried f8, but that didn't work. I read something on the internet about repartioning the hard drive to dual boot, but there is a login password for windows and no one seems to know what it is. I thought of using a dos boot disk, but I can't change the boot order in the bios because there's a bios password.. I cracked open the case to remove the battery (and thus reset the cmos and remove the password), but I couldn't find one on the motherboard These things are ancient, at least by computer standards -- is it possible that the battery's in some sort of case or something on the motherboard? It must have one somewhere. Are we completely screwed?

Thanks.

Edited December 28, 2005 by amohongos

[Japlabot]

Windows NT doesn't have DOS, no boot option is going to get you into it.

Boot off a DOS Floppy, or the Windows 98 Install CD (Which includes DOS).

If you can't get into CMOS, you could press F8 during startup to get a Boot Menu (Or F6, F9, F10, F11, F12, etc. it varies from BIOS to BIOS). If you still can't get in (and you can't boot from anything to get a BIOS reset program), try to find the CMOS reset jumpers (Google the Motherboard's Model Number to try and find a manual)

I had a motherboard that had a battery that was SOLDERED onto the motherboard, maybe you could get someone who knows a little about electronics and desolder the component that doesn't look like a Capacitor.

If nothing else works, you could remove the Hard Disk, and install DOS from another computer. If in the end you get DOS on it, but you didn't get into the BIOS (To ever change the boot order again), I would recommend installing Boot Manager and install it to the MBR of the Hard Disk, which will give you the ability to boot from CD/Floppy on startup

[E t h a n]

But then isn't there the problem that they may be formatted with NTFS? If so, normal DOS and WinDOS don't recognise that file system. You'd have to have some sort of NTFS for DOS thing...?

[MazX_Napalm]

Don't take a solder iron to a mobo. The charge generated by a normal solder iron can fry the mobo.

Is there anything that you need off the disks?

Remove the disk and put in a caddy or anther pc and check it out. While you are there, use Disk Management to kill the partition. Now when you put it back, it is ready for formatting and install.

Check the mobo manufacturer. There is normally a jumper for clearing the bios. Also the manufacturer will be able to help on the battery location.

[Japlabot]

If you know how to use a soldering iron, it is an option. Soldering irons generate heat, not electricity/charge. You won't damage the motherboard if you know how to use one. You could probably do more damage by shorting the +/- terminals of the battery (which could also work if you short them for 10 or so seconds) then to just desolder it.

[ghayes]

  capeche said:

But then isn't there the problem that they may be formatted with NTFS? If so, normal DOS and WinDOS don't recognise that file system. You'd have to have some sort of NTFS for DOS thing...?

Sysinternals/Winternals has a program called NTFSDOS that you use to access NTFS formatted drives while booted into DOS. I believe that Sysinternals has the free Readonly version and Winternals sells the Read/Write version.

- Greg/Raxco Software

Microsoft MVP - Windows File Systems