[Hudzy]

Does anyone know what "Boot to OS/2" does in the BIOS advanced configuration settings? Does it mean you can have two operating systems installed and it boots the second one by default or something. I ask because I seem to have seriously screwed XP and am wondering about installing another OS from dos to access the hdd with so I can backup stuff before I format it. At the moment, I can't access xp at all. The only way around it at the moment is to format, but that means I'll loose quite a lot of stuff which I'd like to backup first if possible.

Another idea I had was to put this hard drive in as a slave to the drive on another computer. Would the other computer's OS take priority then and let me access the drive with the messed up xp on it after booting up with 98?

[Taristin]

As I recall, OS/2 was a system before Windows, wasn't it?

[Exarch]

OS/2 was an IBM designed operating system supposed to compete with the early windows. It actually wasn't bad, better than windows as an operating system in my opinion, but it just never caught on. Since, well, compatibility with windows programs wasn't very good and not many programs were made to take advantage of it. Is it an IBM machine you have? Wouldn't be surprised if their BIOS still had that option as a relic of old times.

[kode]

actually, the win16 compatibility wasn't that bad.
almost a shame that the ibm-ms project didn't turn out as good as it could have.

[Grey Wolf]

It's in all BIOS from AMI. Not sure about Award though.

[Odyssey]

Switching the HD into another computer would work, so long as you reconfigure the jumpers so that the HD was a slave, not a master. Then the computer ought to boot from the master as usual. If it doesn't work, then you can format the boot sector of the hard drive so it doesn't get in the way. I can find the command for you, but I have no idea whether it would format the rest as well. I'd have to test that for you to make sure, if it gets to that.
Installing another OS would also work, but probably not Windows. You need something that gives you a lot of flexibility in the installation as to what to put in the boot sector.

[Taristin]

I have an award BIOS, and I think I may actually have that option, too...

[Hudzy]

Thanks guys I decided to set it up as a slave drive to another drive and got what I wanted. Formatted and everything's back to normal.