Can't access hard drive from bootable floppy disk

I just bought an IBM ThinkCentre A50p and I really dislike how the
pre-installed software is set up. All I want to do is make an ms-dos start
up disk so I can run chkdsk and other utility programs. I made one in XP
via formatting a floppy disk, restarted, entered c: and instead of getting
my hard disk I get what IBM call a service partition, which is also on the
hard drive, which includes a backup of my system and the operating system.
I tried other drive letters, I cannot access the main part of my hard drive
in dos. Any ideas?

On Sat, 9 Aug 2003 15:35:59 +1000, "Robert Smith"
<> wrote:

>I just bought an IBM ThinkCentre A50p and I really dislike how the
>pre-installed software is set up. All I want to do is make an ms-dos start
>up disk so I can run chkdsk and other utility programs. I made one in XP
>via formatting a floppy disk, restarted, entered c: and instead of getting
>my hard disk I get what IBM call a service partition, which is also on the
>hard drive, which includes a backup of my system and the operating system.
>I tried other drive letters, I cannot access the main part of my hard drive
>in dos. Any ideas?

Yeah: boot into Windows and take a look at the boot partition: it's probably
an NTFS partition - which you can't see with a vanilla DOS boot...

"daytripper" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sat, 9 Aug 2003 15:35:59 +1000, "Robert Smith"
> <> wrote:
>
> >I just bought an IBM ThinkCentre A50p and I really dislike how the
> >pre-installed software is set up. All I want to do is make an ms-dos
start
> >up disk so I can run chkdsk and other utility programs. I made one in XP
> >via formatting a floppy disk, restarted, entered c: and instead of
getting
> >my hard disk I get what IBM call a service partition, which is also on
the
> >hard drive, which includes a backup of my system and the operating
system.
> >I tried other drive letters, I cannot access the main part of my hard
drive
> >in dos. Any ideas?
>
> Yeah: boot into Windows and take a look at the boot partition: it's
probably
> an NTFS partition - which you can't see with a vanilla DOS boot...

Yes you are right, so basically if Windows gets stuffed am I stuffed? What
precautions should I take?

You could use partition magic to convert the partition
back to FAT32.

"Robert Smith" <> wrote in message
news:3f359cf5$0$6526$ ...
>
> "daytripper" <> wrote in message
> news:...
> > On Sat, 9 Aug 2003 15:35:59 +1000, "Robert Smith"
> > <> wrote:
> >
> > >I just bought an IBM ThinkCentre A50p and I really dislike how
the
> > >pre-installed software is set up. All I want to do is make an
ms-dos
> start
> > >up disk so I can run chkdsk and other utility programs. I made
one in XP
> > >via formatting a floppy disk, restarted, entered c: and instead
of
> getting
> > >my hard disk I get what IBM call a service partition, which is
also on
> the
> > >hard drive, which includes a backup of my system and the
operating
> system.
> > >I tried other drive letters, I cannot access the main part of my
hard
> drive
> > >in dos. Any ideas?
> >
> > Yeah: boot into Windows and take a look at the boot partition:
it's
> probably
> > an NTFS partition - which you can't see with a vanilla DOS boot...
>
> Yes you are right, so basically if Windows gets stuffed am I
stuffed? What
> precautions should I take?
>
>

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 11:16:23 +1000, in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems, "Robert Smith"
<> wrote:

>"daytripper" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>> On Sat, 9 Aug 2003 15:35:59 +1000, "Robert Smith"
>> <> wrote:
>>
>> >I just bought an IBM ThinkCentre A50p and I really dislike how the
>> >pre-installed software is set up. All I want to do is make an ms-dos
>start
>> >up disk so I can run chkdsk and other utility programs. I made one in XP
>> >via formatting a floppy disk, restarted, entered c: and instead of
>getting
>> >my hard disk I get what IBM call a service partition, which is also on
>the
>> >hard drive, which includes a backup of my system and the operating
>system.
>> >I tried other drive letters, I cannot access the main part of my hard
>drive
>> >in dos. Any ideas?
>>
>> Yeah: boot into Windows and take a look at the boot partition: it's
>probably
>> an NTFS partition - which you can't see with a vanilla DOS boot...
>
>Yes you are right, so basically if Windows gets stuffed am I stuffed? What
>precautions should I take?

If you only need read access to the drive, SysInternals have a
NTFS-for-DOS driver available for download.

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr.../NTFSDOS.shtml

They also sell a read/write version, but I'm not sure how well it
works.

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