Win98SE dual boot with winXP Home

[Everbane 0]

I tried to go dual boot on my dads computer and heres what happened. I formated the HD and made two partitions. 1 was a 100gb FAT32 for Win98SE, the other a 60gb NTFS for WinXP Home. I installed Win98SE to C before i installed XP. When i tried to boot the computer into Win98SE after a successful install, it said:

 

Insufficient memory

 

Remove programs in your startup from you

config.sys or autoexe.bat.

 

Press any key to continue...

 

It said that, well the majority of that. The problem we see is that my dads computer has 2gb DDR memory, so theres plenty of memory to go around. So after trying this a multitude of times, we installed WinXP Home on the other partition and got that to load fine. But then another problem came along. For some reason, instead of putting WinXP Home on D, it put it on F. The only problem we can see here is that my dad has 2 other HDs that were labled, D,E,& F before we formated the c drive for dual boot. So we think it messed up the drive letters. But, it wont even show the other 2 HDs now.

 

I know its alot, but if anyone has any solution or suggestions, could you please help???

[Wilhelmus 1]

Lets start with the 98SE error:

 

SYMPTOMS

Quote:

If your computer has 1 gigabyte (GB) or more of random-access memory (RAM) installed, Windows may not start. Also, when you try to start your computer, you may receive the following error message:

 

Insufficient memory to initialize Windows.

 

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart your computer.

 

This behavior may also occur during Windows Setup, or when you try to start Windows for the first time.

 

RESOLUTION

Quote:

To work around this issue, add the following line to the [386enh] section of the System.ini file:

MaxPhysPage=30000

 

This limits the amount of physical RAM that Windows can access to 768 MB. To do so, use the following steps:

1. Use any text editor (such as Notepad) to edit the System.ini file.

2. Add the following line in the [386Enh] section of the file

 

MaxPhysPage=30000

 

3. Save the file, and then restart your computer.

 

If this problem occurs during Windows Setup, use the following steps to resolve the issue:

 

1. Restart your computer. When you see the "Starting Windows 95" message, press the F8 key, and then choose Command Prompt Only from the Startup menu.

 

For Windows 98, restart your computer, press and hold down the CTRL key until the Startup menu appears, and then choose Command Prompt Only.

2. Change to the folder into which you are attempting to install Windows.

3. Edit the System.ini file. To do so, type edit system.ini, and then press ENTER.

4. Add the following line in the [386Enh] section of the file

 

MaxPhysPage=30000

 

5. Save the file, and then restart your computer. Windows Setup should continue.

 

Now the dual-booting issue.

 

Basic rule of dual-booting installation is that you install older Windows first, then the newer Windows will detect the older and set the configurations for dual-booting.

 

Partition the HD into 2 partitions, as you did. Format the first partition to FAT32. Leave the 2 partition as is, do not format it.

Install 98SE to FAT32 partition, Boot-up with XP CD and start setup. Then select the unformated partition from list, format it to NTFS and install XP to it.

 

Do not know why the XP wanted install to F:, perhaps your partitioning program did something wrong?

 

 

[Everbane 0]

Thanks much that solved teh problem with win98, it actually boots now! Still trying to get teh hard drives to be reconized, but thankyou so much for all your help! i cant beleive it was just that one simple line that had to be added!

[pmistry 0]

Keep in mind that Windows 98 might still have issues with 768 MB of RAM, try to keep it under 512 MB if you can. I am sure there are guides on the web for it. But I used to use 98 SE and Millennium with 1 GB of RAM and I had problems continuously till I dropped the setting to 512 MB and I also had to reduce my AGP Aperture size in the BIOS to 64 MB.

[Everbane 0]

Ok after doing all that i got it working, but now another issue is coming up...

 

I am trying to install the driver for my creative audigy 2. I got the driver and everything and go through control panel, add/remove hardware and select the multimedia audio device. I select the driver on the cd but when its almost done with the installation, i get a BSoD.

 

I tried then after many attempts to install my graphics card driver, it did the same thing to me, and even when i tried to install other drivers, anyone got help for this please?