ron@vpnet.chi.il.us (Ron Winograd) (12/01/90)
Hello everyone, I have a 386, running both MS-DOS 4.01 and UNIX System V. My question: I have the active hd partition on unix, because that is the only way I know how to start it. This means that if I want MS-DOS, I have to boot off a floppy. However, if I do, then I have to keep it in everytime I exit a program, like Word, or Delux Paint etc.. because it needs command.com. Is there anyway to "switch control" over to the C: drive, without having to use fdisk to switch active paritions again and rebooting? -Ron ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Ron Winograd |Some boy scouts were taking a survey. They knocked on a| |ron@vpnet.chi.il.us|door and asked the gruff man who answered, "Sir, do you| |-------------------|think that ignorance or apathy are the biggest problems| |in America?" Annoyed, he answered, "I don't know, and I really don't care!"| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
plim@hpsgwp.sgp.hp.com (Peter Lim) (12/03/90)
/ ron@vpnet.chi.il.us (Ron Winograd) / 2:55 pm Dec 1, 1990 / writes: > > Hello everyone, > I have a 386, running both MS-DOS 4.01 and UNIX System V. > My question: I have the active hd partition on unix, because that > is the only way I know how to start it. This means that if I want MS-DOS, > I have to boot off a floppy. However, if I do, then I have to keep it in > everytime I exit a program, like Word, or Delux Paint etc.. because it > needs command.com. Is there anyway to "switch control" over to the C: > drive, without having to use fdisk to switch active paritions again and > rebooting? > -Ron > YES ! Ron, no problem. All you have to do is to include the following line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file on your boot floppy ... SET COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM Assuming that you have an appropriate copy of COMMAND.COM in the root directory of your C: drive. From then on, you can remove your floopy disk and COMMAND.COM will be loaded from your C: drive. Regards, . .. ... .- -> -->## Life is fast enough as it is ........ Peter Lim. ## .... DON'T PUSH IT !! >>>-------, ########################################### : E-mail: plim@hpsgwg.HP.COM Snail-mail: Hewlett Packard Singapore, : Tel: (065)-279-2289 (ICDS, ICS) | Telnet: 520-2289 1150 Depot Road, __\@/__ Singapore 0410. SPLAT ! #include <standard_disclaimer.hpp>
ron@vpnet.chi.il.us (Ron Winograd) (12/03/90)
Thank you to all who responded. It turns out that the soloution was incredibly simple. All I needed to was put the line: set comspec=c:\command.com in my autoexec.bat, and it worked like a charm. Thanx -Ron ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Ron Winograd |Some boy scouts were taking a survey. They knocked on a| |ron@vpnet.chi.il.us|door and asked the gruff man who answered, "Sir, do you| |-------------------|think that ignorance or apathy are the biggest problems| |in America?" Annoyed, he answered, "I don't know, and I really don't care!"| -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
pete@indep1.UUCP (Peter Franks) (12/04/90)
In article <27573f78-5d6comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc@vpnet.chi.il.us> ron@vpnet.chi.il.us (Ron Winograd) writes: ->Hello everyone, -> I have a 386, running both MS-DOS 4.01 and UNIX System V. ->My question: I have the active hd partition on unix, because that ->is the only way I know how to start it. This means that if I want MS-DOS, ->I have to boot off a floppy. However, if I do, then I have to keep it in ->everytime I exit a program, like Word, or Delux Paint etc.. because it ->needs command.com. Is there anyway to "switch control" over to the C: ->drive, without having to use fdisk to switch active paritions again and ->rebooting? Try putting the following into your A:\AUTOEXEC.BAT set COMSPEC=c:\command.com c: That will make the system look for command.com on Drive C: instead of the drive you booted from (and log you into it). If you have COMMAND.COM in a different place, use the entire path in the 'set COMSPEC' line. You could do virtually the same thing in your CONFIG.SYS file using the 'SHELL=' command. RTFM. -- +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Peter Franks | pete@indep1.mcs.com OR pete@indep1.uucp | | NI9D | Use whichever one works | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
nee@cf_su14.Salomon.Com (Robert Nee) (12/04/90)
> Is there anyway to "switch control" over to the C: > drive, without having to use fdisk to switch active paritions again and > rebooting? The DOS environment variable COMSPEC is set at boot time to point to the command processors file so that it may be reloaded if needed. Since you are booting from a floppy it will default to point to the copy found on your floppy or COMPSEC=A:\COMMAND.COM in order to allow DOS to reload COMMAND.COM from your C drive place to following command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file Set COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM This assumes of course that the file actually resides in the root rirectory of your C drive. Robert Nee