einic

how many hv tried this dual operating system with PC requirements(like Pentium 3 only) as 12 see the reliabilty

lotuseclat79

I run a Win98SE and RH Linux PC w/512MB RAM, Pentium III, and two 40GB disks.

The configuration was gated by my desire to separate the two OSes from each other on different disks. I bought a ROMTEC Trios hardware switch to do that, but for some reason (possibly not the right motherboard), the setup did not produce a performant system for both OSes.

Instead, using the Linux boot loader, grub, the first disk has the grub partition and a Win98SE partition (the default boot OS), and the second disk has the Linux partitions, and its own MBR (as I understand it).

I would have preferred the ROMTEC Trios switch to work, but that's a problem for another day - ROMTEC's web page is no longer on the Web, so I assume they may have been either bought up or went out of business.

I will probably try another hardward switch (via searching the Web) because I still do not like the idea of more than one OS on a single disk, and I also do not believe my configuration is amenable to using boot diskettes to correct problems to Win98SE due to the alien MBR being in terms of grub rather than MS. My take is also that it is possible have the grub partition and Linux on the first disk as the default boot OS and Win98SE on the second disk which may have been a cleaner way to go about what was possible vs. what I wanted.

A possible problem is that when a problem happens to the 1st disk where it becomes inaccessible for the MBR, thus making the 2nd disk also inaccessible.
My understanding is that in this situation it may be possible to change the BIOS to indicate that the system should boot up with the 2nd disk (HDD-1) instead of the 1st disk (HDD-0) as it is by default now. I need to try this experiment in the BIOS, but have not yet done so.

Upgrading either OS with this configuration may also be a problem such that there is no interference with the other OS/disk during the upgrade.

-- Tom

Volt-Schwibe

ok, how's this for a test of a low end system...

i have a p2 350 mhz, with 384 megs ram and a 5 gig hard disk, and a 16 mb video card.

i have it set with two partitions, the first one being 1500 megs, fat32 for windows 98, and the second one being 3500, with a linux filesystem with mandrake 10 on it.


i was told this was going to be the hardest thing i could do, but in reality i had nearly no issues with it.

i partitioned the fat32 partition, put windows 98 on it, and then rebooted the machine, set up the linux partition, and installed mandrake 10 on it.

mandrake knew what to do about the windows/mandrake dual boot, and it set it up for me on the first try.

it was not the challenge i was told it was.

both ways, the machine runs exactly as expected.

einic

tks for above reply,yrp partition b4 ,no success, can relate the steps? tks

Volt-Schwibe

Hello again,

although i am not sure what "yrp" is, i will try to explain how i made this dual boot work.
(keep in mind, this is the same for any version of windows. just install the windows first...)


for me it went alot like this:


1. assemble computer from low end used parts.
2. insert windows boot disk into computer, and start computer.
3. when computer asks if you want cd support, choose no this time.
4. when the computer has finished booting, type "fdisk" and hit enter.
5. use fdisk to delete all the partitions on the hard disk.
6. use fdisk to create a suitable partition for windows. (for example, half the disk)
7. set newly created partition as active, exit fdisk, and reset computer.
8. when computer asks if you want cd support, choose yes this time.
9. format c:
10. begin the windows installer, and install windows to c:

11. once windows has finished installing, insert your linux boot disk, and reboot the machine.
12. when linux boots, and asks if you want to install, choose yes.
13. when the computer asks you about hard disk, choose "use free space" (this should happen smoothly, linux should take the free space on the drive, and create a linux partition.)
14. install linux onto this new linux partition.
15. linux will ask about where to set up the boot loader, i simply chose MBR. (master boot record)

at the bootloader is where i see the potential for errors.

other than that one choice, the rest of the choices almost don't matter.
you could have 3 disks and 12 partitions, each with a different operating system on them, and as long as this bootloader is installed properly, all of your operating systems in a multi-boot environment should work.

einic

missed its -try tks 4advice

johnwill

I used BootMagic from Partition Magic for my multi-boot system. It has W98, W2K, and Linux on it, handy for debugging stuff. It was pretty easy to get BootMagic handling all the partitions.