98's on C:, XP's on D:, - get rid of 98, + switch HD's

[Cooter]

Hi,

I am dual-booting Win 98, and Windows XP, on two 5GB HD's. Win 98 is installed on the Primary, (Master) Drive letter C: on a 750MB FAT32 Partition. Windows XP is installed on the Secondary, (Slave) Drive letter D: an NTFS Partition. My programs for XP are back over on the Primary, Drive letter E: on a little over 4GB's NTFS Partition.

Now that I don't need Win 98 any more, I want to switch the Secondary to the Primary, and vice versa, without having to reinstall XP, and my XP Programs.
And also reclaim the 750MB's from Drive C: (Win 98), to go with the little over 4GB's NTFS Partition-(in other words the current Primary Drive, (C: FAT32 and E: NTFS) would become a 5 GB NTFS Secondary, with my XP Programs.

As far as the actual physical switching of the drives, and the re-partitioning go, I'm all set.

Where I need the advice, is, I believe I have to do something about the files that XP put over on the root of C: involving the boot sequence, and files, like ntldr, and BOOTSECT.DOS and NTDETECT.COM, and maybe something on XP too, before I switch the drives, if I want it to be able to boot.

Appreciate help from someone who understands what I want to do, and knows the correct procedure to accomplish it correctly.

Thank you very much

 

[Dan]

Hi,

I am dual-booting Win 98, and Windows XP, on two 5GB HD's. Win 98 is
installed on the Primary, (Master) Drive letter C: on a 750MB FAT32
Partition. Windows XP is installed on the Secondary, (Slave) Drive letter D:
an NTFS Partition. My programs for XP are back over on the Primary, Drive
letter E: on a little over 4GB's NTFS Partition.

Now that I don't need Win 98 any more, I want to switch the Secondary to the
Primary, and vice versa, without having to reinstall XP, and my XP Programs.
And also reclaim the 750MB's from Drive C: (Win 98), to go with the little
over 4GB's NTFS Partition-(in other words the current Primary Drive, (C:
FAT32 and E: NTFS) would become a 5 GB NTFS Secondary, with my XP Programs.

As far as the actual physical switching of the drives, and the
re-partitioning go, I'm all set.

Where I need the advice, is, I believe I have to do something about the files
that XP put over on the root of C: involving the boot sequence, and files,
like ntldr, and BOOTSECT.DOS and NTDETECT.COM, and maybe something on XP too,
before I switch the drives, if I want it to be able to boot.

There's really no need to do any of this. But if you must, you will at
least need to boot with your XP CD and do a repair install. This will
put the NT boot files back on the new C drive.

Plus, since XP is currently on the D drive, you can't just make it the C
drive and expect XP to still work. Lots of internal XP things are
looking on the D drive.

If you don't want to re-install XP, it would be easier to just delete
the 750 megs of Win98 stuff, and then use Partition Magic to shrink your
current C drive down to a minimum size - say 10 megs or so. Then move
that empty space to your E drive, and leave XP on the D drive.

Dan