How to install ReacOS from DOS

[MatthewBrian]

Hi,

Could ReactOS be installed from DOS?

I currently owned an older small machine (Pentium MMX 200Mhz) which has only one IDE port (because of the small motherboard size) which only allows one device rather than usual two devices. I am going to install ReactOS there to replace Windows98 which is not secure.

In Windows 2000 and XP, I can start the Windows setup from DOS by executing \i386\winnt.exe, but in ReactOS CD there are no winnt.exe.

Is there any executables which I can execute from DOS to install it?

Thank you very much.

[EmuandCo]

I fear that this is not possible. You can't install it from dos, just from bootcd. The only way you can try is installing it on the hdd with another pc.

[steveh]

I suggest you
1. do a 1st stage install on a virtual hdd in a VM on another PC
2. when the 1st stage install is finished and wants to reboot, you stop the VM
3. you run the VM's hdd image with a liveCD and copy it completely, or only the first partition, to a file
If you use a VM software with USB capability, (Vbox free closed-source version for example) you can connect (tunnel thru the real PC) a real external USB memory (flash or disk) to the VM while it runs with the liveCD

4. you copy that file to the real disk, or to the 1st partition of the target PC, depending on what you have exported from the VM.
If you copy the entire disk, then the 2nd stage install can go as is on the target PC.
If you copy only 1 partition, then you must install a boot manager on the target PC (because reactos has not it's own MBR in that case).
You can install GRUB to boot reactos (possibly also alternative "grub 4 dos" if the PC has no linux, and no native grub)
To do this step 4 you must either boot the PC with a liveCD, or if BIOS cannot boot a CD, possibly a special floppy-disk sized linux?

Maybe you can alternatively also install other boot managers "XOSL", "GAG" or "PLOP", but i never tried that.
I once tried those to start a liveCD on a PC whose BIOS cannot boot from CD, but anyone of the 3 failed...

If no other solution for 4 works, you can also plug in temporary the target HDD into another PC, hopefully that one has a unused PATA IDE port on it's mainboard (an old MMX Pentium PC has a PATA IDE disk and not a SATA !)

[MatthewBrian]

steveh and emuandco,

I combined both of your tricks and it worked successfully!

I removed the IDE harddrive and put on another PC with IDE (none of my three PCs have SATA ), installed there, and when it reboots, I entered the BIOS setup and turned off the PC.

I put the harddrive back and continue setup from there.

Thanks!

[EmuandCo]

Hehe, nice that it worked.