Dual Boot 98SE and XP on two hard drives with PartitionMagic

[George Kleynhans]

Hello everyone.

I have the following current setup:

Disk 1: (50 GB)
CO: Win98SE OS (10GB, FAT) Primary
DO: Win98SE Programs (50GB, FAT) Logical
Everything works fine except that the disk is almost full. I now have a new
(second) HD (160 GB) and both Win XP Pro and Partition Magic 8.0 with which
I would like to create a dual boot setup. I installed Partition Magic and
started to run the "Install another operating system" wizard but was not
satisfied when it would only want to install XP on Disk 1. Since Disk 1 with
98SE works perfectly I want to keep it as is. Now, what can I do to create
a dual boot setup without disturbing the existing 98SE setup on Disk 1?

Since the new hard drive is quite large one scenario I thought of is the
following:

1) With PartitionMagic copy partitions C: and D: from Disk 1 to Disk 2
2) Create new NTFS partitions for XP OS and Programs and an additional
partition for shared data (FAT32)
3) Disk 2 would hopefully look something like the following:
C: Win98SE OS (10GB, FAT32) Primary
D: Win98SE Programs (50GB, FAT32) Logical
?: XP OS (10 GB, NTFS) Primary
?: XP Programs (50 GB, NTFS) Logical
?: DATA (40 GB, FAT32) Logical
4) Run the "Install another operating system" wizard in Partition magic to
install XP since everything is now on the same disk.

I don't know what drive letters will be assigned to the partitions, or in
what order they should be created, as I am not sure how PartitionMagic will
hide/unhide the different partitions but ideally I would have a C: D: E:
setup for each OS with E: being the only drive common to both. Finally, my
original Disk 1 is untouched and is available as a fall back should
something go horribly wrong.

Is this achievable? If so, could somebody please give me some tips
regarding how to do this with PartitionMagic and what should I be careful
with. Also, after copying the partitions from Disk 1 to Disk 2 what happens
after a reboot? Will the system be confused? Do I need to do something with
BootMagic (e.g., activate/deactivate drives) or do I just disconnect the
hard drive cable from Disk 1 after shutting down?

If the above is not possible, what is the best suggestion on how to proceed?

Many thanks for any suggestions/comments,

George

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hello everyone.

I have the following current setup:

Disk 1: (50 GB)
CO: Win98SE OS (10GB, FAT) Primary
DO: Win98SE Programs (50GB, FAT) Logical
Everything works fine except that the disk is almost full. I now have a new
(second) HD (160 GB) and both Win XP Pro and Partition Magic 8.0 with which
I would like to create a dual boot setup. I installed Partition Magic and
started to run the "Install another operating system" wizard but was not
satisfied when it would only want to install XP on Disk 1. Since Disk 1 with
98SE works perfectly I want to keep it as is. Now, what can I do to create
a dual boot setup without disturbing the existing 98SE setup on Disk 1?

Since the new hard drive is quite large one scenario I thought of is the
following:

1) With PartitionMagic copy partitions C: and D: from Disk 1 to Disk 2
2) Create new NTFS partitions for XP OS and Programs and an additional
partition for shared data (FAT32)
3) Disk 2 would hopefully look something like the following:
C: Win98SE OS (10GB, FAT32) Primary
D: Win98SE Programs (50GB, FAT32) Logical
?: XP OS (10 GB, NTFS) Primary
?: XP Programs (50 GB, NTFS) Logical
?: DATA (40 GB, FAT32) Logical
4) Run the "Install another operating system" wizard in Partition magic to
install XP since everything is now on the same disk.

I don't know what drive letters will be assigned to the partitions, or in
what order they should be created, as I am not sure how PartitionMagic will
hide/unhide the different partitions but ideally I would have a C: D: E:
setup for each OS with E: being the only drive common to both. Finally, my
original Disk 1 is untouched and is available as a fall back should
something go horribly wrong.

Is this achievable? If so, could somebody please give me some tips
regarding how to do this with PartitionMagic and what should I be careful
with. Also, after copying the partitions from Disk 1 to Disk 2 what happens
after a reboot? Will the system be confused? Do I need to do something with
BootMagic (e.g., activate/deactivate drives) or do I just disconnect the
hard drive cable from Disk 1 after shutting down?

If the above is not possible, what is the best suggestion on how to proceed?

Many thanks for any suggestions/comments,

George

You wrote about "CO:" and "DO:" - what are these things?

My preference in multi-booting systems is to keep all OSs strictly
separate, in partitions that are mutually invisible from each other.
I also allow for a data drive that is visible to all OSs. I don't see
any point in having separate drives for the OS and its programs.
Doing this creates a zoo of drives and makes it difficult to keep
things separate from each other.

I have never used the boot manager tools of Partition Magic
but I have used XOSL extensively. It lets you do all of the above,
and it's free.

I would go about it like so:
- Create an XOSL partition of 15 MBytes on the new disk.
- Install XOSL there.
- Create a primary partition for Win98.
- Use Partition Magic to copy Win98 across.
- Add Win98 to the XOSL menu.
- Create & format a primary NTFS partition for WInXP.
- Install WinXP.
- Add WinXP to the XOSL menu.
- Modify the XOSL menu so that Win98 and WinXP are
hidden from each other.
- Create a logical partition for my data.
- Modify the XOSL menu so that the data partition is visible
to Win98 and to WinXP.

With XOSL it is possible to boot into an OS that is installed
on a slave disk. You could therefore tell XOSL to boot into
your existing installation of Win98 on the slave disk. There
is no need to place the Win98 boot files onto the primary
master disk.

 

[George Kleynhans]

You wrote about "CO:" and "DO:" - what are these things?

My preference in multi-booting systems is to keep all OSs strictly
separate, in partitions that are mutually invisible from each other.
I also allow for a data drive that is visible to all OSs. I don't see
any point in having separate drives for the OS and its programs.
Doing this creates a zoo of drives and makes it difficult to keep
things separate from each other.

I have never used the boot manager tools of Partition Magic
but I have used XOSL extensively. It lets you do all of the above,
and it's free.

I would go about it like so:
- Create an XOSL partition of 15 MBytes on the new disk.
- Install XOSL there.
- Create a primary partition for Win98.
- Use Partition Magic to copy Win98 across.
- Add Win98 to the XOSL menu.
- Create & format a primary NTFS partition for WInXP.
- Install WinXP.
- Add WinXP to the XOSL menu.
- Modify the XOSL menu so that Win98 and WinXP are
hidden from each other.
- Create a logical partition for my data.
- Modify the XOSL menu so that the data partition is visible
to Win98 and to WinXP.

With XOSL it is possible to boot into an OS that is installed
on a slave disk. You could therefore tell XOSL to boot into
your existing installation of Win98 on the slave disk. There
is no need to place the Win98 boot files onto the primary
master disk.

Thank you for your reply and suggestions. Sorry, the CO: = C: and DO: =
D: - guilty of not paying attention during spell checking!

Following your last paragraph I could just leave my existing Disk 1 with
Win98SE as it is (avoid making a partition for Win98 on the new drive and
copying with PartitionMagic) and make the new Disk 2 with:
1) 15 MB partition for XOSL
2) Primary NTFS partition for XP OS
3) Logical NTFS partition for XP programs
4) Logical FAT32 partition for shared data
5) Make this disk boot first in the Bios
6) Install XOSL via a bootable floppy
7) Add the original/current Win98 drives on the other Disk to the XOSL menu
8) Install WinXP
9) Add the XP drives to the XOSL menu
10) Modify XOSL so that the Win98 and WinXP drives are hidden from each
other and that the shared data drive is visible to both Win98 and WinXP.

This makes for fewer steps and avoids the use of partition magic to copy
partitions and waste space with duplications. This was much the way I
(naively) imagined a dual boot could be setup before I ran into the problem
that PartitionMagic wanted both operating systems on the same disk.
However, how does this setup cope through all the reboots during WinXP
installation?

George

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thank you for your reply and suggestions. Sorry, the CO: = C: and DO: =
D: - guilty of not paying attention during spell checking!

Following your last paragraph I could just leave my existing Disk 1 with
Win98SE as it is (avoid making a partition for Win98 on the new drive and
copying with PartitionMagic) and make the new Disk 2 with:
1) 15 MB partition for XOSL
2) Primary NTFS partition for XP OS
3) Logical NTFS partition for XP programs
4) Logical FAT32 partition for shared data
5) Make this disk boot first in the Bios
6) Install XOSL via a bootable floppy
7) Add the original/current Win98 drives on the other Disk to the XOSL menu
8) Install WinXP
9) Add the XP drives to the XOSL menu
10) Modify XOSL so that the Win98 and WinXP drives are hidden from each
other and that the shared data drive is visible to both Win98 and WinXP.

This makes for fewer steps and avoids the use of partition magic to copy
partitions and waste space with duplications. This was much the way I
(naively) imagined a dual boot could be setup before I ran into the problem
that PartitionMagic wanted both operating systems on the same disk.
However, how does this setup cope through all the reboots during WinXP
installation?

George

Your approach sounds reasonable, with two reservations:

- You must install XOSL on a primary partition on the primary
master disk. You must not install it on a slave disk, and you
must not install it on a disk connected to the secondary
controller.
- While installing any new OS (e.g. Windows XP), you must
make the target drive the FIRST VISIBLE primary partition
on the primary master disk. After the OS is installed, run
XOSL to selectively hide it.

Example 1: This will work
- Primary master disk, primary partition 1, hidden: XOSL
- Primary master disk, primary partition 2, visible, empty: for WinXP
(it's the first visible primary partition on the primary master)
- Primary master disk, logical drive, visible: data
- Primary slave disk, primary partition 1, visible: more data

Example 2: This won't work
- Primary master disk, primary partition 1, hidden: XOSL
- Primary master disk, primary partition 2, hidden: Win9x
- Primary master disk, logical drive, hidden: data
- Primary slave disk, primary partition 1, visible, empty: for WinXP
(it is not the first visible primary parition on the primary master)

Why won't it work? Because WinXP cannot be installed on a slave
disk. XOSL can make it RUN on a slave disk but it must be installed
on a master disk.

How can you fix it?
- Make the primary slave disk the primary master.
- Install WinXP.
- Turn it back into the slave.
- Instruct XOSL to boot from it.

Warning: When you do this sort of thing, you must at all times
make sure that the drive with the OS is the FIRST VISIBLE partition.
All other partitions (e.g. data partitions) must come later in the
queue. The reason is simple: All your OSs run of their individual
drive C:. If you have a preceding data partition then the data
partition will claim drive letter C:. Here is a reasonable layout:

Primary master:
- XOSL
- WinXP
Primary Slave:
- Win98
- Data (last in the queue!)