95 and DOS together.

I just got a 486 PC with 95 installed on it. I want have it dual-boot with MS DOS 6.22 (& Win3.1). Can I do this without damaging or reinstalling 95 (I have no CD for it)? Or is there a way to get an image of 95 that I can restore at a later time?
How do you suggest I get this 95 to dual-boot with DOS?

Side Note: This PC has a 486 CPU & 8MB RAM. Can it run the best (& most system resource hungry) DOS games?

1.  Can I do this without damaging or reinstalling 95 (I have no CD for it)? Or is there a way to get an image of 95 that I can restore at a later time?
2.  How do you suggest I get this 95 to dual-boot with DOS?
3.  Side Note: This PC has a 486 CPU & 8MB RAM. Can it run the best (& most system resource hungry) DOS games?

1.  Image with Norton Ghost for DOS.
I have an old laptop almost the same specs:  486, 16MB RAM
2.  Partition Magic came with a DOS Program called PQBoot.  I put of copy of it in each partition.  It's a DOS boot loader.
I dual boot the same:  Win95 & MS DOS 6.22 (& Win for Pen Computing)
The computer came with DOS6.22 and Win for Pen.  I partitioned the 2GB-disk to 1.5GB for Win95, and 500MB for DOS6.22.  I imaged the original install with Norton Ghost for v7.0 for DOS.
The laptop has no CD & no FDD, so did everything through the parallel port.
3.  DOS only uses 640MB + 384MB

[Moderator]

Nope.
Can't be done after the fact.

Make a boot disk with Windows 95 (SYS command) and make sure to copy SYS.COM over to the floppy, too. (just in case ;P)

it's quite simple, actually; all you need is another partition. Install DOS 6.22 onto that partition. I'm not sure if DOS 6 rewrites the MBR on the first partition but if so you can boot to the 95 floppy and use SYS to fix it.

the only caveat being that to boot to the DOS install you would need to change the boot order. I cannot remember how dual-booting worked with 9x, I think it might have been by editing the windows 9x MSDOS.SYS, but I cannot remember.

3.  DOS only uses 640KB + 384KB

DOS does. but DOS games for the most part utilize Extended memory via XMS or DPMI system calls. Doom, Duke3d, quake, and countless others.


EDIT: heh, I never actually answered the memory question!


8MB is about "medium" for DOS games. the more advanced games- The aforementioned Duke3d and quake, for example, will run with 8MB, but I doubt it will be very playable. Aside from that however almost any other DOS game will hae more then adequate RAM.

Make a boot disk with Windows 95 (SYS command) and make sure to copy SYS.COM over to the floppy, too. (just in case ;P)

it's quite simple, actually; all you need is another partition. Install DOS 6.22 onto that partition. I'm not sure if DOS 6 rewrites the MBR on the first partition but if so you can boot to the 95 floppy and use SYS to fix it.

the only caveat being that to boot to the DOS install you would need to change the boot order. I cannot remember how dual-booting worked with 9x, I think it might have been by editing the windows 9x MSDOS.SYS, but I cannot remember.

Well I've never really had to do this kind of thing before so I'll probably need you to walk me through it. Also this computer is missing the card that had the mouse port on it. I have a COM1 port though, can I use a serial mouse in that port?

it's quite simple, actually; all you need is another partition. Install DOS 6.22 onto that partition. I'm not sure if DOS 6 rewrites the MBR on the first partition but if so you can boot to the 95 floppy and use SYS to fix it.

I thought DOS only installed to C: partitions?

...I cannot remember how dual-booting worked with 9x, I think it might have been by editing the windows 9x MSDOS.SYS, but I cannot remember...

http://www.computerhope.com/msdossys.htm
You may be thinking of the BootMulti option, but I don't believe it allows booting from different partitions.

I thought DOS only installed to C: partitions?

Whatever partition it is on, will get the drive letter "C:\", if I remember correctly.

To dual-boot 3.1 and 95 both OS must be installed on the C:\ drive/partition. Only NT-based system supported using other partitions for install.

I've searched the web to find the best method for dual-booting these 2 and my best find was:
1. Install MS-DOS 6.22 First
2. Then Windows 95 or 98
3. Install TweakUI from Windows CD
4. Run TweakUI - Select Boot
5. Select ' Always show boot menu'
6. Restart PC and select Previous OS
7. Now Install Windows 3.1 into a directory
8. called 'Win31' (Or anything other than Windows) Edit Autoexec.Bat to this directory.

Image with Norton Ghost for DOS.

Well I'm going to reformat and install DOS/Win3.1 then. So I can make an image of the way the system is now, can I restore that image at any time later? And which version of Norton Ghost would I need to image 95 with (has to be able to run with my low specs)?

[Moderator]

Whatever partition it is on, will get the drive letter "C:\", if I remember correctly.

Nope.

ST has some truth in that statement. On my old Cyrix, I installed DOS and win98SE; DOS was on E: drive, or more precisely, the third primary partition; I installed windows 98SE to the C: drive. It didn't seem to see the DOS install. I had to swap by changing boot options. When I booted to DOS it called the E: drive C: drive, the C: drive D: drive, and the D: drive E: drive. So while it required changing of the boot order there were two OS' installed and they boot successfully... and DOS did regard the drive it was installed on as C:.

So while it required changing of the boot order there were two OS' installed and they boot successfully... and DOS did regard the drive it was installed on as C:.

That is what I meant, so what's with the "Nope", Patio?

The following occurs at startup:

   1. MS-DOS checks all installed disk devices, assigning the drive letter A to the first physical floppy disk drive that is found.

   2. If a second physical floppy disk drive is present, it is assigned drive letter B. If it is not present, a logical drive B is created that uses the first physical floppy disk drive.

   3. Regardless of whether a second floppy disk drive is present, MS-DOS then assigns the drive letter C to the primary MS-DOS partition on the first physical hard disk

ST has some truth in that statement. On my old Cyrix, I installed DOS and win98SE; DOS was on E: drive, or more precisely, the third primary partition; I installed windows 98SE to the C: drive. It didn't seem to see the DOS install. I had to swap by changing boot options. When I booted to DOS it called the E: drive C: drive, the C: drive D: drive, and the D: drive E: drive. So while it required changing of the boot order there were two OS' installed and they boot successfully... and DOS did regard the drive it was installed on as C:.

So would it be a better idea for me to use 2 partitions or 1?

...
1.  So I can make an image of the way the system is now, can I restore that image at any time later?
2.  And which version of Norton Ghost would I need to image 95 with (has to be able to run with my low specs)?

1.  That's what it's designed to do.  It creates image files, 2GB max.  It makes as many as it needs to create the image.  FAT16 has 2GB file size limit.  I image to USB drive.  You can also image to CD-R/W.  If there is a burner present, Ghost will recognize it.
2.  Any version that's DOS only.  I got one free with a motherboard.  7.0 & 7.5 Enterprise versions are about 650kB, small enough to build a bootable floppy disk.  Later versions are about 1MB.

1.  That's what it's designed to do.  It creates image files, 2GB max.  It makes as many as it needs to create the image.  FAT16 has 2GB file size limit.  I image to USB drive.  You can also image to CD-R/W.  If there is a burner present, Ghost will recognize it.

Well my HDD is only 250 MB so I will not be exceeding the 2 GB limit. 
Like I said this is 486 PC so it has no usb and no cd drive. I think I have a cd burner laying around somewhere though. Ghost 7.5 has system requirements of: 386 CPU, 8 MB RAM, Windows 9x/NT4 or higher - so my computer only just qualifies.

Any version that's DOS only.  I got one free with a motherboard.  7.0 & 7.5 Enterprise versions are about 650kB, small enough to build a bootable floppy disk.  Later versions are about 1MB.

Where could I get the program though? I found a trial version (http://www.brothersoft.com/norton-ghost-246203.html), but I'm worried that it might not work for my needs (e.g. will it restore after 30 days)?

Here's a free one that might work:  http://partimage.org/Main_Page
I have no experience with it, so you might want to test it first.

[Moderator]

Short answer...
Install DOS 1st...
Then install whatever you want after it....