On Sunday, February 5, 2023 at 2:57:51 PM UTC-6,
vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
I have a laptop with no OS.. well I messed it up
I tried to reformat with GParted, but it was supsiciously fast. Formatting should take forever, right? I'm going to try bootable DOS ISO. Some
mentioned EasyBCD but it does seem proprietary, and GParted terminal has a pretty complete BASH. But then I am thinkig to format FAT16 initially.
It had w7 but moving the partition messed it up and notheing else will load
Win 7 (numerous versions) or x86 and 64 bit compatible, depending on what version
you use. The partition table is setup according to the system processor's core memory
(which is either a 32 bit or a 64 bit configuration, depending upon what the processor
and co-processor can handle and its spec.'s, etc...). I will say if the systems are more than
15-20 years old (at this time), they are probably 32 bit (if they date back to the 90's, then
you're dealing with FAT 16 and FAT 32 [which are usually prior versions of windows that
you can still technically get, but are outmoded now- and not Microsoft supported...]...)
Then the hard drive (and hardware) type have to match up to the processor, as well as the
RAM, the other components, etc... compatibility is key there.
I decided I want to put XP on it, because w7 doesn't like to be moved
I am trying to replicate an old set up (2007 AOpen desktop - won't be able to access) where I used GParted and GRUB to triple boot MSDOS 6.22, XP and QUantian (Knoppix/Debian)
Laptop and OSes are all old, probably as old as my old set up.
Seems one major issue is IDE Legacy vs UEFI, and MBT vs GPT.
Apparently old DOS wants to be the first sector.
That may be the default setting, but it does not have to be-- things are set up according
to bootability, then boot order of the drives, and where on the drive you want to start
writing-- all in accordance with the capability of the system. I recently did a clean reinstall
of win7 PRO on a new 2 TB micro SATA HDD for a consumer. I used a USB drive to do it.
It had the needed information on there to start the process of loading it without the boot
information. All I had to do was go into "command prompt" mode. The system found the
setup files I needed in the proper subdirectory to begin the process of loading win 7 Pro
(32 bit version) onto the new massive hard drive. I used some MS-DOS commands to
get to where I needed to be, but it allowed me to access the files without using DOS after
that.
By the way, DOS 6.11 was the first DOS program in the 1980's, but it had flaws and some
revisions, by 1987, DOS 6.22 was what became the most common version of software.
DOS was the abbreviation that stood for direct operating system. Sorry for the history
lesson. It is good to know these origins of windows, as the first versions of Windows were
what I referred to as "behind the scenes DOS commands all at once with pretty picture,
graphics, and mouse clicks-- done with each command." That was what made windows
really powerful. Some people remember others saying that the operating system was
"borrowed from Apple" as there was a version the Macintosh had for their machines in
their "System" program- prior to the hard drive coming out. This Microsoft "windows"
version was used for IBM PC, compatible, and clone machines.
These systems really started the way we do computing today. They still follow the same
basic principles when doing software installation, or doing firmware upgrade, software
fixes, or installing drivers, etc... only exception is that you do not have to know the port
settings, drive settings, and the IRQ requests so much any more.
Hope this helps out.
Good luck.
Charles Lucas
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