[poochie]

Some of my old programs need win/98 to run. I plan to install win xp and was thinking of installing a separate hard drive just to run my older programs. Is this the most practical thing to do, or am I better off, partitioning my harddrive and using a portion of it to run win/98? Which way has the least chance of complications? Are they both straight forward to do? I have fairly good computer skills but am not prepared to get into complicated problems. All replies appreciated

 

[johnwill]

First off, to dual boot W98 and XP/W2K, you'll have to have the boot drive formatted FAT32. If it's currently NTFS, you can convert to FAT32 with Partition Magic.

Normally, it's desirable to install the oldest O/S first, since the newer one will automatically setup the dual boot if asked. It is possible to install W98 after the fact, but there's a bit of tinkering necessary to get the dual boot working properly.

Whether it's on a different partition or a different physical hard drive makes no difference in the complexity.

An alternative way to handle the dual-boot is to use something along the lines of System Commander and have it hide the drive of the O/S not being booted, this makes it easier to get the second installation running.

 

[brett001]

I dual boot with 98se and XP for similar reasons.

I'm pretty sure both operating systems need to be on the first physical disc...Just create two partitions on your hard drive, and install Win98 first. Partition Magic is great for this, especially if you already have Win98 on your existing hd. Partition Magic can be used to split the drive in two, giving you two partitions (effectively shrinking your original partition, and taking the necessary space it needs to set up the other partition).

I have a 20gig drive, which is partitioned into two 10gig partitions (was originally just the one partition with Win98SE on it) with Win98SE and WinXP Pro.

It's really quite easy to set up and you don't need a boot manager because XP will set it up for you.

Here is the real quick rundown, be glad to give you more info if you need it.

Back up all important files just in case, do a thorough scan disk and defrag. Use Partition Magic to create another partition on your drive for XP.
After your sure everything is working fine in Win98 and the new partition is ready, pop in the XP disk from within Win98 and choose "new installation". On the screen after you put in the serial number, choose "advanced options" then pick "I want to choose the installation location". The setup starts copying files and reboots, then you get to a screen were you choose where to install it, pick the new partition you created and the installation will finish.

As soon as it's done, you have a dual boot setup and when you boot you will be able to choose what OS to use.

 

[johnwill]

The boot files obviously have to be on the first disk, but the O/S does not, you can load it on any drive. FWIW, this is from actually doing this more than once.