MS-DOS Startup Disk

[John]

When you right-click on Floppy Drive and click on format, there is the
option to "Create an MS-DOS startup disk." When you create it, it doesn't
contain a COMMAND.COM and when you boot to it, it errs out, saying
"COMMAND.COM is missing or corrupt."

Anybody else get that error?

John

[Chad Harris]

Hi John--

What is your source for making the dos start up disk? Is it actually ***for
Vista? If it was designed for another OS it may not work in Vista and Vista
uses the Windows imaging format based on Win PE.

I've seen it written widely that you can't run the Vista install from dos.
I see comments like this all the time: This is from MSFT and titled

Using Windows PE for Installation
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/w.../aa905120.aspx

"Using Windows PE for Installation
Microsoft has designed Windows PE to replace MS-DOS as the pre-installation
environment. Windows PE is built from Windows Vista components, providing a
robust, flexible, and familiar environment. In fact, Windows PE can run many
Windows Vista applications, detect and enable most modern hardware, and
communicate across Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Windows PE typically
consumes less than 100 MB of disk space and can run entirely from Random
Access Memory (RAM), enabling you to insert a second CD that contains
drivers or software. These features enable Windows PE to run on computers
that do not currently have a formatted hard disk or installed operating
system. However, Windows PE is not a full-featured operating system like
Windows Vista."

Or this from:
http://flimflan.com/blog/default,month,2006-12.aspx

"Unfortunately, you cannot run the Vista install from DOS. If that were the
case, you would simply have to share a folder (or drive) on your technician
computer containing the Vista install, map a drive to it from the target
computer, and run setup.exe. Instead, invoking Vista's setup.exe will give
you an error message that it cannot run from DOS.

Running Windows PE 2.0
The solution is to boot your target computer into Windows PE 2.0, which is
the Vista equivalent of a DOS boot disk (with MUCH more capabilities). You
cannot download Windows PE 2.0 (that I know of), so you need to create your
own PE image using the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). Download
the image at that link, rename the .img file to .iso, and either mount it
using VirtualCD, some other ISO disk mounter, or burn it to a CD. Once you
can read the disk image, run the setup to install WAIK on your technician
computer.

Unfortunately, one of the steps to create a version of Windows PE 2.0 that
can be booted from the network must be performed on a computer already
running Windows Vista (or PE 2.0). If you have access to such a machine, you
can skip ahead to "Creating a Windows PE 2.0 PXE Installation". Otherwise,
use the following steps to get a minimalist Windows PE 2.0 up and running:"

Good luck,

[David A. Spicer]

You can download boot disks from http://www.bootdisk.com/

[DX]

Chad, Why don't you read the users comments properly.
He just wants to make a bootable floppy via the vista format command, who
said he was going to install vista with it etc..... geeez

[Synapse Syndrome]

I would not say that you analogy is very good. It's pretty easy to get real
WinPE 2.0 on the internet if you look. I found it on one of those
Rapidshare sites from a link I found on Google.

[XS11E]

You can flash the BIOS from a bootable CD or, if your machine allows
booting, from a flash drive you can use one of them.