Getting into DOS without a boot disk...

[Validus]

Hi,

I have an old laptop (IBM ThinkPad 770E) which doesn't have a floppy disk drive. It has a CD-ROM drive however. I need to wipe the hard drive clean and install a new OS on it, but I can't seem to get that done without using a boot disk.

Any suggestions? If I could get into DOS somehow, I could run fdisk and such from the CD, but I can't get to that point...

Would a boot CD work? I tried copying over the boot disk files to a cd instead, and start the laptop using the CD, but it just skipped right over it.

[ErnieK]

If you go into the BIOS and change the boot order to first boot device as CD, save this then insert the OS CD into your drive and reboot. (Win98 onward CD's were/are bootable)

When the comp boots up it could either give you the choice of CD or OS (HDD) to boot from, or it will boot directly from the CD. When it does go ahead and select to install OS choosing to do COMPLETE format of the HDD. If you have the HD partion select the partition with existing OS.

[Sylvander]

Go to http://ebcd.pcministry.com/ and make a free copy of the "Emergency Boot CD" [EBCD]. This has lots of useful programs on it and can be customised to add more.
It has "fdisk" & "format.com" & "Image" [for making and restoring backup images of partitions and drives] & scandisk &....[32 prog's plus].
Search these forums for "Sylvander" & "EBCD" for details of making and customising the EBCD.
When you are reinstalling the OS make backup images at various point along the way when the software is working well.
Keep a backup of the OS alone and another after all the prog's have been installed and all configuration tweaks made.
If you ever hit trouble, just restore a suitable backup to recover.
If that doesn't fix the problem, then it isn't a software problem.

To use "Image" you need [when partitioning] to make a FAT partition [other than C:] to hold the backups [I use my last partition G:]
To restore C: you just boot from the EBCD, load "Image", navigate to the image backup file [of the C: partition], and restore it to C: [you can restore any other partition also (except the backup partition)].

Which OS do you intend to install?

[Validus]

Thanks for the tips, I'll give those a shot. An image of the hard drive might be a good idea too since I don't think the person this will be going to is too familiar with computers and how to keep them running well.

It's a Pentium II, 266MHz with 96MB of Ram, I don't think it can handle too much. It's got a Designed for Windows 95 sticker on it... but I'll put 98 on it most likely, I may go with 2000 Pro if I find a copy of it.