Dual Booting for Dummies

[Brian Frank 0]

Okay, Im sick and tired of having to tell or see someone else tell people how to dual boot. So here is my guide to dual booting.

It is helpful to have your partitions formatted to FAT32. The reason being that while Win2k can see FAT32 and NTFS partitions, the Win9x line cannot read NTFS without a utility, and that could be an inconvienence for many people.

It shouldnt matter on which partition either OS resides, but it is advised to install Win9x first, then Win2k.

Okay, youve already installed Win2k and dont want to start from scratch--understandable. If youve installed Win2k under a FAT32 file system, you just have to have a partition for Win9x. You will have to get a hold of a partitioning utility, unless you really feel like reformatting your hard drive, get partition magic 6.0. Even if youve got NTFS, you can set the new partition to be FAT32, but you cannot change the Win2k partition to FAT32 without a reformat to my knowledge. There may be a utility out there that can safely do this, but I havent heard of it.

Once youve installed Win9x on your partition, youll notice you cant get into Win2k. This is easy to fix. Boot off the Win2k CD and choose the repair option on the install/repair menu. Choose the repair option that does NOT ask for a emergency repair disk. Choose the FAST repair option. Now you may have to make a change to be able to boot to either OS. In windows right click on my computer/properties/advanced/starup and recovery. There you can set whichever OS you want to be the default boot and the time till it will automatically boot to the default OS.

[Brian Frank 0]

One thing I forgot to mention is that if youve already got a partition set aside, and your running the NTFS filesystem, you can format that partition under 2k to FAT32. Just remember, the Win9x line CANNOT READ NTFS, not without a utility.

[Dirty Harry 0]

An easy (easier) way to dual boot if you have a MB with two controllers (or external controller) and two separate harddrives is to use the bios as the boot manager.

 

I use the Abit KA7-100 and just clone my standard boot partition (C :)on the "Future ATA" to the other HD (D on the HDD-0 controller. Then I just select in bios where I want to boot from. The great thing is that with W2K all the other drive assigment letters stay put, so all programs work. If you use Drive Image or Ghost it takes less than five minutes to copy over a 4 GB partition.

 

This way I can play around with a fresh clone of my system and return to normal operations if something goes wrong.

 

H.

[Brian Frank 0]

While that is true, not everyone has RAID or wishes to get RAID, not to mention an extra hard drive. RAID is a nice feature, but its one of those things that really isnt necessary unless youre running a server. Plus, many consumers dont know what RAID is-other than some bug killer-no pun intended.

Also, many boards dont have an extra set of IDE controllers with ATA100/RAID. Usually, only Asus and Abit really focus on getting these features for consumers--and they are expensive. If someone wanted to just get an ATA100 card not including RAID-its a $100 or so, where as Partition magic costs maybe $50 or less. And you dont have to get a new hard drive, unless yours is full.

Im not bashing on your setup, but for most people, RAID may not be a viable option.

Even if you do have 2 hard drives, you still have to go into Win2k (using a dual boot with win2k and win9x)and set the default partition if you want the default boot to be something other than Win2k.

I just posted this because a lot of people dont know how to dual boot without reformatting their hard drive and ask here how to do a dual boot, so I got sick of it. This wasnt to cover all possible ways to dual boot.

No hard feelings, RAID is a very nice option if you can get it or really need it. But not everyone does.

[Dirty Harry 0]

RAID... who talked about RAID? Have you tasted that bug killer ?

This has nothing to do with RAID, and in fact I would recommend using a boot manager instead if you want to dual boot on a RAID setup.

And BTW, there was nothing wrong with your original post, I just pointed out an alternative for some.

[nam ng 0]

It's nice to have alternatives, IE with Adaptech's SCSI you can even specify which of multiple SCSI drives be the bootable unit upon power up.