Help with dual boot

[bastardman]

Here's what I want to do; I want a dual boot system with windows 98 and windows xp. I have the hard disk split in 3 partitions and I want xp on the first and 98 on the third. And I want the partition with 98 to be assigned a drive letter other than c (x if possible).
And I want the first 2 partitions to use NTFS, the third with 98 will have to use fat32 of course.

If I format the first 2 partitions as NTFS, then dos can't see them when I am installing 98, and renames the third partition as c:, which I don't want. Can I format all three partitions as fat32, then reformat the first 2 with NTFS after I install WIN98? Is there anyway to do this?

C: - Partition 1 (NTFS) - WINXP
D: - Partition 2 (NTFS)
X: - Partition 3 (FAT32) - WIN98

 

[jiffy]

Why do you want to do it that way? The below would be much easier. You could run into problems with the boot loader right off the get go as soon as you load the second OS. From one OS not booting to going back and fourth fixing the boot loader. Now you might be able to pull it off with a third party software. But it would be so much easier to just set it up this way. Got to go my P4 2.8 just arrived, woo hoo!

C: - Partition 1 (Fat32)) – WIN98
D: - Partition 2 (NTFS) - WinXP
E: - Partition 3 (NTFS)


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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[bastardman]

Yes, I know that would be much easier, but it's not what I want to do. WINXP will be used 99 percent of the time, I want it on the fastest partition (the first), while WIN98, which will be used rarely, (but enough to make a dual boot worth it) on the slowest (third). Most programs default to c: when installing, and I don't want the pain of having to remember to change the destination to D: every time.

I know a dual boot can be done with xp on the first partition, and 98 on the third, thats not a problem. And I know the partition with WINXP doesn't have to be labeled c: Is there a way to run WIN98 from a partition not labeled c:? I don't see why not. I'm just not sure how to.

 

[cneitz]

You are better going with jiffy's configuration for partition scheme. NTFS is not readable from FAT32, he said it is possible with 3rd party utilities, which it is, but a huge pain in the ass (more then its worth), as well, by default, with your boot.ini on an NTFS partition, how will the FAT32 partition ever see it in order to load? Make 3 primary partitions, win98 on 1st, XP on 2nd, and an NTFS primary on the third. Seems to be the best configuration for your needs. Then load your XP paging file on the third primary partition.

 

[goloap]

Here is my idea:
1) Partition your HD in three FAT32 partitions as you like
2) Install win98 on the E: drive
3) Install winXP on the C: drive and format it in NTFS at the same time
4) Format the second partition to NTFS.

The only problem I can see with my scheme is that: I'm not sure if win98 will still boot properly even if it does not see the two other partitions anymore.

In ancient times they had no statistics so they had to fall back on lies

 

[bastardman]

I think you are right that I will have to make the first partition as fat32. I made a little progress. At first I was making the partitions by booting with the XP cd, but I couldn't seem to see them when booted with the 98 boot disk. Then I switched to FDISK. I made the three partitions which the system recognized with dos, then formatted the 3rd with fat32, and tried to install 98. But it would crash after the first restart. I gave up, but I think that the problem was that I didn't format the first partition, so it couldn't write the boot.ini. I'll give it another try.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by bastardman on 06/11/03 08:55 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jiffy]

All the power to you, but IMHO I think your worrying about nothing. I don't think your going to notice much differnce, if any where the OS are, second when you install programs they will not always go to C: by default, but to the OS your installing the program to. Sure some programs will point to C:, but only a few.

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.