potticus

I'm trying to dual boot 95 and xp, but I can't seem to make it work.

I've currently got 2 partitions, with xp installed on d:, and i want to put 95 on c:. I'll probably have to reinstall xp again on d: as 95 will overwrite some stuff on the system drive, but that's ok because xp installation is nice and easy :)

my problems are with 95 - i tried to cheat, to see if i could install it on c: when i had booted into xp, but it said i can't install it running win nt, which is fair enough, so i made a dos boot disk, i'd like to boot using the floppy, install win95 to c: from dos, and bada-bing! (+ xp re-install if nec)

All sounds ok ... however for a couple of different boot disks now i've restarted, it's booted to floppy, and come up with freedos in the top left - fine - except that it won't progress from this to the command line, so i can't do anything!

if anyone can tell me what's up, and how i can get into dos to install 95, i'd be most grateful :)

thanks! :)

OldGrayGary

Hi potticus


I think a saner alternative is to install and run Windows 95 in a virtual environment, such as Microsoft's Virtual PC 2004 --- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en --- Virtual PC is provided free-of-charge by Microsoft.

It isn't the easiest thing to get Windows 95 to install into computers built in the last five years or so. The older chipsets that support Win95 era hardware were much slower than todays, and Win95 can run into timing problems. Windows 95 driver support for todays hardware is also pretty non-existent. Running Windows 95 in "emulation" or as a "virtual machine" overcomes those difficulties.

Should your computer have old enough parts to still reasonably have a chance to run Windows 95 natively, you first need to create two partitions before you install anything === one for Win95, and one for WinXP (or simply leave unpartitioned space for XP, and let it take care of that later). Install Win95 first, and be aware that Win95 original is limited to 2gb partitions (FAT16 limitation) ... Win95 versions "OSR2" and later can use larger partitions (FAT32). Install XP onto its own partition - it will add Win95 to a boot menu that shows at startup.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

potticus

Yeah I'd already FAT32 formatted c:, and ntfs formatting d:, I've got Win95 with USB support, so it'll definitely run with fat32 ...

we installed xp first on d:, formatted c: fat 32, put the win95 cabs and installer into c:/windows .... used dos on cd to boot, installed 95 like that ... but then we had an error message about insufficient memory ... i was expecting xp to be broken and have to be reinstalled but i thought at least 95 would be working after that install?

any ideas?

i'll definitely check out the link. someone once told me virtual machines/emulators for windows didn't exist due to M$ copyright or something?

OldGrayGary

Hi again


Try again, this time installing Win95 into the first primary partition. Then install XP onto it's partition. The XP bootloader will take care of things.

You can run into problems running Win95 if your cpu is faster than 2ghz. Video/Audio drivers for recent hardware might not be available either.
_______________

Microsoft provides Virtual PC free-of-charge: but you still need to install fully licensed copies of the operating systems you setup "virtual machines" for. That is likely what your friend was referring to.

Best of luck
. . . Gary


P.S. Just for more information on all the details, here's Microsoft's article on dual-booting XP with DOS/95/98/Me/NT/2000 --- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306559

potticus

We're struggling to get Win95 on there first, as it's not a Win95 boot cd - and we can't use a floppy boot with cd drivers on it, as the damn floppy disk is brokem.

Hence install xp, place cabs etc, install windows, as have made a boot cd that will pick up c:, and we just ran setup from there.

Just to add something - i'm not writing this from my pc. I installed virtual pc last night, and at this rate, i'm going to have to reinstall windows! it appears to have taken over my entire pc, starting with the networking capabilities (rendering my connection stable for all of 2 seconds, literally!), prevents my pc shutting down, and now refuses to be uninstalled.

All in all, pretty <TWIBAT> <TWIBAT> (excuse my french)

OldGrayGary

Hi again


As far as loading Win95 natively, why not slave the hard drive in another PC (rather than installing XP first), then put the drive back, boot from a bootable DOS CD, and start setup. The easiest bootable DOS CD (actually Linux, with a floppy disk emulator) is the "Ultimate Boot CD" --- http://www.ultimatebootcd.com --- or you can make your own --- http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/#cdromsi

Or . . . borrow a working floppy drive.

As far as to your troubles with Virtual PC, it rather sounds like setup didn't go quite right. You can uninstall Virtual PC from a command prompt:

Msiexec.exe /x "Microsoft Virtual PC 2004.msi" PIDKEY=PID key number /qn

Where PIDKEY is the product key. The key may or may not be required to run the command, depending on how the original installation went.

Best of luck
. . . Gary


What project do you have that requires Win95?

potticus

I never actually got round to installing an OS on a VM ... i created the VM and it was having none of my OS cds, it just wanted to install cross network! I'll have a hunt and try VMware or such like i think, the name's cropped up a few times in good light.

the slaving idea is a pretty good one, i've got another sata drive and an optical to install at some point, so i'll give it a go then.

that's what you get from a dell, broken rubbish!

i managed to fix my pc eventually, system restore righted all the wrongs i couldn't see (or at least the ones i haven't noticed yet).