Dual boot help needed plz

[pearl jam 0]

I was wondering if anyone could help me regarding dual boot win2k and win98. I think that this is a unique situation.

 

 

I have 2 hard disks physiscally. The first hard disk has 2 drives C: (primary partition) NTFS which is where I installed win2k (2195) and drive G which is also NTFS. The second hard disk has 3 drives, D and E . They both FAT16 and drive F which is NTFS.

 

 

I have partition magic version 5 which I can't install in win2k. However, I made 2 boot disk from it. Whenever I boot from these 2 disks, I can run the program but when I exit the program, I can only see the two FAT16 drives.

 

 

So I was wondering if there is anyway that I can install win98 on one of the FAT16 partition without formating and partitioning all the drives.

[nova 0]

You've contacted me some days ago, but I didn't have the time to answer -- until now.

 

I've sent you a rather lengthy email!

 

nova.

[nova 0]

For everyone to read the email I've sent to pearl jam, I'm posting it, right here and right now!

 

=======================================

 

Hi!

 

(First, I hope you can read this message, I switched over to HTML formatting for this one to be able to draw the table! It would have been chaotic otherwise..... :-P)

 

Finally I get to replying.... I had to learn hard for an exam I wrote today.

 

No problem, I'll try to help you, be my guest! :-)

 

Do you mean you can't see the NTFS partitions under DOS after you exit PM5? I guess I've misunderstood you, but who knows? If this is the case, what exactly did you mean? Otherwise: this is completely normal, you can only see and access NTFS partitions under WinNT/Win2000, not under DOS or Win98.

 

Or did you mean you can't see the NTFS partitions from within PM5? That would be bad, as I can't imagine what reasons this could have...

 

Well then, let's take a look at your partitions again:

 

HD1:

C: primary NTFS

G: logical NTFS

HD2:

D: primary (??) FAT16

E: logical FAT16

F: logical NTFS

 

Your problem, as you want to install Win98 on your system, is that Win98 *needs* its boot partition to be FAT16 or FAT32. Obiously you're currently booting from C: which is a primary NTFS partition. Where is your \WINNT directory? Is it on C ;(

 

The simplest solution in your case would be to convert the C: NTFS partition back to FAT16 (FAT32 would be even better to get a smaller cluster size) (as far as I know PM5 can do this). Then you can install Win98 on D: or E: (i.e. specify D:\WINDOWS or E:\WINDOWS as the Win98 dir during setup). It only needs "C:" (in general!) to be FAT16/32 to store its boot files there: IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT and stuff like that.

 

But beware, if your \WINNT directory is on C:, it's not a very good idea to convert that partition to FAT. NT/Win2000 works on a FAT drive, but it's far from optimal (security and performance reasons). Now if THIS is the case, then I suggest reinstalling Win2000 (and Win98) and repartitioning like this (this is about my preferred way to set up pure Win2000 machines or mixed Win2000/Win98 machines):

 

Code:

Letter (W2k)   Letter (W98)    on HD #    File System      Size          Description=============================================================================================================================C:             C:              1          primary NTFS     0.5 to 1GB    Only the boot files of both OSes are here,                                                                         and you should place your swap file here, too***.D:             -               1          logical NTFS     1GB****       Install your \WINNT dir in here, that makes the                                                                         \Documents and Settings dir also go here, and the                                                                         \Program Files dir, too. But install all your other                                                                         programs in another partition, because here's not                                                                         too much space!E:             -               1          logical NTFS     rest of HD1   Install your Win2000 apps here, and all your other                                                                         Win2000 stuff.-*             D:              2          logical FAT32    0.5 to 1GB    Install your Win98 \WINDOWS dir here. (This will                                                                         also put Win98's \Program Files dir here.)-*             E:              2          logical FAT32    ~1/2 of HD2   Put your Win98 apps here, and other Win98 stuff.F:**           -               2          logical NTFS     rest of HD2   If you really want, you can put another NTFS partition                                                                         here, like you have done now.

 

*    You don't need to give drive letters to these partitions under Win2000 if you don't need to access them from there. Or give them higher letters like M: and N:!

**   You might want to give this partition the letter F: instead. F: is much more continous, and it is not used under Win98 in this configuration, so it won't confuse you.

*** You should ALWAYS use a permanent swap file with the minimum size being EXACTLY identical to the maximum size, under Win2000 as well as under Win98!! It should not be less than 256MB large, best value for normal to heavy apps/games usage is 512MB, only use 1024MB if you do some really hardcore stuff like editing or rendering huge images or compiling Quake levels. After you've decided how large your swap file will be, add about 50MB to gain the final size of the C: partition (remember, there need to be some additional files on this partition: the NT/Win2000 start files (BOOT.INI, NTLDR, etc.), and the Win98 start files (IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, CONFIG.SYS, etc.); and you might want to install the Win2000 Recovery Console, then it takes an additional ~7MBs on C: -- you can do this from within Win2000, just run X:\I386\WINNT32.EXE /CMDCONS, where X: is your CD-ROM or where your Win2000 install files are located.)

**** You should really give Win2000 a whole 1GB, I know it's much space, but in the future you might regret it if you don't. The \WINNT\SYSTEM32 dir will keep growing, and you might want to temporarily store some files (downloaded files, or others) on your desktop (which is kept in your profile under "\Documents and Settings", also on this partition) from time to time! It really hurts if you get "Out of disk space" errors. :-P

 

To further explain this disk layout: it's always a good idea to keep the Win2000/Win98 installation dirs in a different partition than all your important data and apps, i.e. D: is just the Win2000 installation and its basic dirs, and E: is the apps and your data (similar for Win98).

 

Another advantage of this layout is that the drive letters under Win2000 vs. the drive letters under Win98 have the same meaning: C: is just boot and swap drive, D: is OS, E: is apps and data.

 

And I suggest that you use a 4kB cluster size for all your partitions to reduce wasted space. And remember that NTFS does NOT support compression, encryption or even defragmentation on partitions with a cluster size larger than 4kB!!!

 

Ok, these were the best hints and tips I could give (this is very similar to how I have set up my system, or at least how I would have set it up if I were in your sitiuation).

 

To summarize:

a) if your \WINNT dir is not on C:, then convert C: to FAT32 with PM5,

if your \WINNT dir IS on C:, and you don't mind running Win2000 from a FAT32 drive, then also convert C: to FAT32 with PM5, and then install Win98 on the partition that is D: under Win2000 (should become D: under Win98, too!),

c) if your \WINNT dir IS on C:, but you don't want to run Win2000 from a FAT32 drive (I recommend that you don't do it!), then unfortunately you need to reformat (and repartition) your drives (I recommend the above layout). I know it's hard work, but after a month or so, you'll be really glad that you have done it, because it runs so fine! :-)

 

Please don't hesitate to contact me if something's unclear or you want to know something else!

 

nova.

 

PS: Whew! That table did take a lot of work to get it looking right!

 

[This message has been edited by nova (edited 19 February 2000).]

[Fireman 0]

Hi nova,

 

Quote:

Originally posted by nova:

- NEVER install Win2000 into the same FAT/FAT32 partition as Win98! I know that there are people outside who say that it works ok for them, but believe me, one day you WILL regret it! (Because this way, Win2000 and Win98 share the "\Program Files" folder (and maybe some others) on that partition, and it WILL give you compatibility problems in one OS sooner or later if you install some programs!)

 

A quick question - it's possible to change the "\Program Files" folder with TweakUI. Do you think this could be a possible soloution to install both Win98 and Win2k on the same partition?

 

I'm thinking of changing the program folder of Win98 to e.g. "\Program Files 98"...

 

Should do the job - or what you're thinking?

 

 

------------------

Ciao, Robert

---

[NaughtyNu 0]

Bah!

 

If your C: is Fat16/32 reinstall 98SE on it and then reinstall Win2k into it's own drive/partition and do with that whatever you want (Fat32/NTFS5,etc)

 

If C: is not Fat16/32 then format it to Fat32 and install 98SE and install Win2k into it's own drive/partition etc.

 

Not the best solution but it's the easist if you have 0% clue to what you're doing

[Woodlet 0]

Yes, okay, that'll work, but then what about your registry?

you'll first write an entry for the 98 install, then overwrite it for the 2k install..

as I recall, that ought to create all sorts of problems for you..

Do what the man said, never, ever install both to the same partition.

[dlever 0]

Quote:

Originally posted by nova:

=======================================

.... I suggest reinstalling Win2000 (and Win98) and repartitioning like this (this is about my preferred way to set up pure Win2000 machines or mixed Win2000/Win98 machines):

{large cuts}


C: C: 1 primary NTFS 0.5 to 1GB Only the boot files of both OSes are here,

Please don't hesitate to contact me if something's unclear or you want to know something else!

nova.

I'm going to take you up on that offer Nova... as my last hope before I lose it completely

Here we go, but firstly am I correct in that there is a typo in your message - surely the shared C drive boot sector for both OS's above should be FAT32 and not NTFS?

I have the following:

20 gig HD 1 - Primary Master
20 gig HD 2 - Secondary Master
Removeable HD ( HD is in a ' tray' which slides in the front of the pc and can hold one of a number of my spare hard drives )- so no ' specific ' size here but always in FAT32 - Primary Slave
Cd-Rom - Secondary slave

I followed the concept of your advice although not quite to the letter - I never learn because it's still a mess.

Made:-
Primary Master -
C - 1 GIG for boot
D - 2 Gig for Win98SE install
E- 2 GIG for Win2k install
F - 15 gig for apps.

Footnote:- I told CMOS I didnt have a secondary master or primary slave. On partitioning the 20gig drive it rolled out the drive letter assignments in order. So far so good.
Addendum:- Strange thing, is when I booted into Windows98 , Windows Explorer recognised and delivered the file contents in the Secondary Master which I told CMOS didnt exist. It even assigned them drive letters G & H (20 gig is partitioned 50/50 - fat32) Sigh.... moving on..

Then.... I formatted D into NTFS.... and installed Win2k. Oh dear.
No problems with the Win2k system and I could change the drive letters as I wished.
However, booting into 98 - of course it now didnt see D (ntfs win2k) , so made my E to D, F to E and naturally confused the hell out of my shortcuts.

Tonight I tried telling CMOS that I have a secondary Master and Primary slave - and the result was cant find win.com etc because now it was allocating C to Primary Master & D to Secondary Master etc etc...

The one deviation from your advice was to put 98 and Win2k on the same drive but in different partitions.
If I now start all over with a boot sector on Primary, followed by Win2k in next partition and install Win98 on first partition on Secondary Master am I going to be any better off?

It seems I am doomed every way - in win98 I'm in trouble if I do not shove in my removeable HD , the Primary slave.

What I want ...is a way that apart from the installion partition drive allocation for 98 and 2k - that my apps on all the other partitions will have the same address in both OS's. Now if 98 does not recognise the D in ntfs how on earth is this possible? Would it help if I installed Win2k on fat32?

Right, after all this I am thoroughly confused. I hope some of it made some sense.

PS: I would bring my pc round for you to play with , but I'm in Cape Town so it's not quite feasible.

[CUViper 0]

no, woodlet.... unless you're stupid enough to put them in the same directory, the registry will be just fine. by default, win98 goes to \windows, and win2k goes to \winnt.

 

As an aside, I am running them both on the same fat32 partition, and it works absolutely fine. The ONLY thing they share is the program files directory, which is not a big deal. Trust me, all my programs work fine in both os's....

[jw 0]

wow and then some---i think i got my answer to the dual-boot phenomena as long as it's the same for nt(not win2k).i to have two h-drives only win98/nt 4.0.

[nagual 0]

nova : u got the patient of a saint..

for the rest of u guys..

tweak3d.net has an excellent dualboot guide...and give up ntfs if u dont know what ur doing :=)

[Dragon-Lord 0]

Okay, new question on this topic. I am very close to dumping W98se off of my dual boot system (W2k is running almost perfectly). the C drive is w98 and Fat 32, while the D drive is W2k and NTFS. My boot.ini files, et al, are on C. If I convert the C drive to NTFS, I assume that W98 just suddenly won't be able to boot. I can then manually edit out the w98 entry in the boot.ini file, delete the windows directory, etc.

 

Is there a problem with this scenario? It seems too easy, hehe. I guess I am most concerned about boot sectors, since my machine looks to the C drive first upon boot up.

 

:}

[nagual 0]

dragon : thats gonna work just fine :=)

[Dirty Harry 0]

Nova, you mentioned in the beginning of this thread that you have a dual boot W2K / W2K system set up but I did not see anything on how you got this to install. I'd be grateful if you could post on how to install W2K "twice" so I can boot as it would be two separate systems. When I tried, the installation refused.

 

My PC has two HD:s, one 27GB ATA66 (now C:, E: and F and 12 GB ATA33 (G: and H + CD (I and CD-RW (J and think I'd prefer to keep all partitions as FAT32. I've kept the OS and my main apps + all data on C: so that I could easily backup everything essential with Drive Image. Maybe not the best design, but it has worked well so far

 

My second problem is related to what I want to do with the dual booting setup. Whenever I get as far as having the two bootable W2K partitions I'd like to copy all of my "real" Win 2000 main boot partition to the other partition (or even better to the other HD) in the same machine and boot from the copy. Why do I want this? I'd like to easily make a 1:1 copy of my current "real" system to play around with, test drivers and software etc. Every now and then (or when something goes wrong) I'll just replace it with another fresh copy. Even with two bootable W2K partitions I guess I'd still be unable to copy (using Drive Image) my first partition and move it to another partition to fool around with? Any ideas on how to do this staying sure those installations, settings and environment variables of the original remain untouched from work, tweaking and installations on the copy?

 

I posted about an idea to use the different controllers on my machine (ATA66 and ATA33) to dual boot to the hardware forum recently but didn't get any answers that really solved it.

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by Dirty Harry (edited 30 May 2000).]

[Dirty Harry 0]

error

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by Dirty Harry (edited 30 May 2000).]

[nova 0]

Ok, that's a long time ago since this thread had started, and I didn't expect anyone to write any more messages in it... but obviously I was in error... :-)

 

Some more things on the topic:

 

-- Dual boot Win2k/Win98: should be no problem as long as your boot partition (C is either formatted with FAT16 or FAT32. To avoid confusion, it's a good idea to keep all FAT partitions *physically before* any NTFS partitions, so the drive letters for the FAT partitions will be the same under Win2k and Win98 (except if you already have installed Win2k and then add FAT partitions before any NTFS partitions: then Win2k will not automatically reorder all its drive letters, you would have to do this by hand in the Disk Management console if you want to reorder them).

 

-- Dual boot Win2k/Win2k: shouldn't be a problem either. Just be sure not to install both into the same partition (see below). And, AFAIK you can't just copy an existing Win2k partition (neither using file-wise copy nor using a partition imaging tool) over to another partition and expect it to work! Win2k exactly knows about the hardware configuration of your PC and will probably be confused if it suddenly finds itself on another partition. I suggest that you do an additional installation of Win2k into the other partition.

 

-- And remember to NEVER install more than one OS into the same partition, be it Win2k/Win98 or Win2k/Win2k. This only makes trouble (which CAN be avoided, but that's not a trivial task; and WHY would you want to put both OSes in the same partition in the first place?)

 

-- Disabling any disks in your BIOS will NOT HELP ANYTHING because Win2k doesn't access the disks via the BIOS! Win2k will find the disks anyway, regardless whether you disable them in the BIOS. I can't say for sure if Win98 does this, too, but I think it DOES.

 

So, to sum things up:

 

If you want a second Win2k installation to try out drivers, etc., then just install Win2k a second time into another partition. Don't use any partition copying tricks or the like, it will probably only cause you headaches.

 

If you want to dual boot Win2k/Win98, the best way is to make your boot partition (C a FAT16/FAT32 partition, and either put Win98 on C:, or (better) make an extra partition (D to carry Win98. Then install Win2k into any further NTFS partitions you may create. Believe me, NTFS is more or less equally fast as FAT (if not faster in some occasions), and *WAY* better (automatic error recovery, even for bad sectors; you can set permissions for every single file; you can set comments for every single file (which you even can search for); etc. etc. etc.!).

 

If you already have Win2k installed and want to install Win98 for dual booting, you may do so, but the boot partition MUST be FAT formatted UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, otherwise Win98 won't run (nor even install). After installing Win98 you may have to restore the Win2k boot sector in the FAT-formatted boot partition. You can use a bootable Win2k CD for that task (use the emergency recovery functions).

 

nova.

 

[This message has been edited by nova (edited 31 May 2000).]

[nova 0]

Ok, everyone! I have decided that I will create a

 

"Drive Letter / Boot Sector / Dual Boot Win2k/Win98 / Dual Boot Win2k/Win2k / NTFS vs. FAT / Recovery Solutions" FAQ.

 

Please note that I'm really busy at the moment setting up a new Q3 mod (and a quite complex web site for it, including a yet-to-be-self-made message board, etc.), so I can't do the FAQ within the next 2 to 3 weeks.

 

But I will make a post here when I've finished the FAQ.

 

There seem to be so many misunderstandings about the above topics, and multiple people already have contacted me via email, so I see the definite need for a collective answering of all the questions.

 

nova.

 

[This message has been edited by nova (edited 01 June 2000).]

[Wolf 0]

nova...you are the man...

 

Quick question..I'm sure you've covered this, but here goes...

 

I had Win2k installed on my C:. I set up a partition so I could dual boot win98. Install went fine, etc etc.. works great.. now..

 

In win2k the partition is assigned drive letter f:, in win 98 it is d:.. how can I make these match? Run PM5.0 from the 98 side and give that letter to the partition on the 98 side?

[nova 0]

Wolf, I assume your \WINDOWS directory (from Win98) is on drive D:.

 

There's probably no way to get these partitions to use the same drive letter under Win2k and Win98, EXCEPT giving the partition that's D: under Win2k a new letter so that D: becomes free and you can assign D: to your Win98 partition.

 

If you want D: to become F: under Win98, no chance. You can't influence the way how Win9x assigns drive letters to hard disks (but you can for removable drives and CD-ROMs).

 

(Maybe PM5 is able to assign letters to hard disk partitions, but I seriously doubt it!!)

 

I hope this answers your question.

 

nova.

[Wolf 0]

Thanks for the info, nova. I don't think I really need to mess with it, anyway. I only boot into 98 for some older games I still run, so the drive letter difference is no big deal, since I just run the games from the C: drive.

 

Thanks again, though!!