how do you get into dos mode?

tmapj · Mar 23 06 11:57

can anyone pls tell me how do you get into DOS mode from windows XP and windows ME? I've gotten viruses on 2 computers and now need to format the drives on both of them (because I cant remover the viruses with the antivirus I have) and install windows 98 Second Edition on both of them.

My second question is, does windows 98 SE allow you to plug and play internal modems? If not, does it allow you to plug and play those little USB drives?

tenkani · Mar 23 06 12:00

If I understand you correctly, you want to start from scratch, format your hard drive and re-install Windows?

I believe you can boot to the Windows installation CD-ROM to do that. You'll have to enable the boot to CD-ROM feature in your BIOS first though.

tmapj · Mar 23 06 12:09

Thanks you but I dont know what BIOS is so i'll have to go through DOS.

In any case I'll have to go through DOS because I need to format my hard drive.

Does anyone know how to get into DOS mode?

tenkani · Mar 23 06 12:15

If you boot to the installation CD-ROM you can format your hard drive from there.

BIOS is a menu system you can access that controls various functions of your computer. It is on every computer, even those with no hard drive. When your PC starts to boot, look for a little message that says something like "hit DEL to enter setup" or something. The message will be different depending on the maker of your motherboard, and sometimes there is no message.

Usually, you hit Delete, or F1 or something early in the boot process and you can access BIOS.

What you need to do is change the "boot sequence" so that it looks at your CD-ROM drive before it looks at your hard drive.

Honestly, I think going through DOS will be much more complicated in the long run. The installation CD-ROM will let you partition, format and install all at once without having to dick around with a command line interface.

NOTE: the whole BIOS thing may be unnecessary if your PC is already set up to boot to CD-ROM. Just try putting in the installation CD-ROM and rebooting your computer.

tmapj · Mar 23 06 12:18

ok thanks I'll have to try that.

Would you be able to answer my other questions though? Can you plug and play internal modems or those little USB drives on windows 98 SE?

tenkani · Mar 23 06 12:23

That one I'm a little less sure about. Here's my guess:

If it's a common type of internal modem, Windows may have the driver in its default set so it may work right out of the box. Otherwise, you may need to download the correct driver from the manufacturer.

As for the USB drive, I believe Windows 98 has USB support, but I think it may support USB 1.0 only, which means the drive may run a little more slowly than on a more recent OS. Take that with a grain of salt because I'm no Win 98 expert.

tmapj · Mar 23 06 05:13

unfortunately this computer is 4th hand and has a password on the BIOS. Is there another way around it? Do you know if theres a way to get into the DOS?

Legion · Mar 23 06 05:17

start > run> cmd> Format C: lol.

tmapj · Mar 23 06 05:20

thanks but you cant do that while running windows

Legion · Mar 23 06 05:23

I think windows me you have to make a boot floppy? In any event xp's CD ROM is a bootable.

Anyway. use the bootdisks.

Legion · Mar 23 06 05:27

Maybe [a href="vny!://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/how-tos/reinstall-faq.html"]this'll help[/a]?

tmapj · Mar 23 06 05:34

I have no boot disk

( how do you make one??

Legion · Mar 23 06 05:38

[font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"]Q. [span class="style7"]I just want to make a Windows 98/Me boot disk? How do I do it?[/span][font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"]
[/font][/b]A. Creating a Windows 98/Me boot disk is easy. If Windows 98 came factory-installed with your machine then one may have been supplied with your documentation. If not, you can create one through the Control Panel. Go to Add/Remove Programs and click the "StartUp Disk" tab and click the "Create Disk" button. It will create a boot disk on a blank floppy for you with CD-ROM support.

[/font][font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"]Q. [span class="style7"]I just want to make a Windows XP boot disk? How do I do it?[/span][font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"]
[/font][/b]A. On a Windows XP computer, put a blank disk in the floppy drive then double click the "My Computer" icon on the Windows desktop. Next click the floppy disk drive to select it. On the File menu, click Format and then in the box that appears check off "Create an MS-DOS startup disk", and then click the "Start" button on that box. Looking for an NTFS boot disk for NT or XP? [a href="vny!://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm" target="_blank"]Try here[/a][/font]

tmapj · Mar 23 06 05:47

thanks. A dialogue box comes up saying "the file 'blah blah' was not found," and goes on to name about every file you need to make a boot disk. I dont have the windows ME cd or any disks? Do you have any other suggestions?

tmapj · Mar 24 06 01:10

Ok I was able to create a bootdisk at bootdisk.com

Unfortunately, every time I boot my system from a boot disk, when I try to access the CD drive (d:) it says its an invalid drive specification. I've tried this on two separate computers, with two different ways of creating a boot disk (with windows XP and with bootdisk.com [for a windows 98 SE bootdisk]).[img class=inlineimg title=Confused alt="" src="vny!://images.cybertechhelp.com/forumimages/smilies/confused.gif" border=0] So, im afraid to wipe my drives clean of windows ME and windows 98 SE respectively.

I checked out instructions at bootdisk.com to (the following is a link) "[A href="vny!://bootdisk.com/usb.htm" target=_blank]Make Your USB Hard And CDrom Drives Work In DOS[/A]" I can't make much sense of it, though I think they want you to edit config.sys and other files, and I'm not sure how to do that, and even if i did i wouldn't know where to put the edits they are talking about.

To be more specific on my problems, I am having problems with two computers. On the first computer, I have gotten a virus, or rather, viruses, trojans and worms. I'm able to remove all of them with my AVG free antivirus software, but for some strange reason, previously unknown and unheard-of programs continue to be detected by my zonealarm firewall as trying to access the internet. Specifically, these are mm1, mm2, mm3, mm4, mm5 and mm6. Additionally, several copies of Iexplorer are caught trying to access the internet, even though I hadn't started IE and no IE windows, minimized or otherwise, could be seen running. Each of these "Iexplorers" use up hundreds of Ks or at most about a thousand Ks of memory.

The second computer is fourth-hand, with a copy of norton-internet security on it. Although the internet security is no longer running, the computer must still be going through a proxy or the like, because I can't access yahoo mail and a few other websites, can't use any internet browsers but IE, and cant connect to P2P networks. The computer wont let me delete the norton internet security.

Any further help would be appreciated.[!-- / message --][!-- edit note --]