dual boot with Win95 and XP

[sarahandus]

I have installed a 2nd hard drive to boot into Win 95, but so far I have
found no way to install the 95 on the new drive. Pc always boots into the C
drive with XP. Have tried a partition manager but that only made the 2nd
drive disappear from the system. If I change the BIOS to boot from a CD
drive the Win95 will start, but I get a message that it can only work from MS
DOS. How can I manage this dual boot?

 

[John John (MVP)]

The easiest way to do this would be by using a third party boot manager
like BootItNg or XOSL.

John

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have installed a 2nd hard drive to boot into Win 95, but so far I have
found no way to install the 95 on the new drive. Pc always boots into the
C
drive with XP. Have tried a partition manager but that only made the 2nd
drive disappear from the system. If I change the BIOS to boot from a CD
drive the Win95 will start, but I get a message that it can only work from
MS
DOS. How can I manage this dual boot?

Which third-party boot manager?

You can easily do this by installing XOSL (a free boot manager) on your
Win95 disk. This requires no BIOS change and is completely reversible. Post
again if you need further details.

 

[John John (MVP)]

You can do it without a third party boot manager but you will have to
place the Windows 95 disk in a Primary Master position. It isn't all
that hard to do but it takes a bit of fiddling about. If you want to go
it that way (instead of using a boot manager) post again.

John

 

[philo]

I have installed a 2nd hard drive to boot into Win 95, but so far I have
found no way to install the 95 on the new drive. Pc always boots into the C
drive with XP. Have tried a partition manager but that only made the 2nd
drive disappear from the system. If I change the BIOS to boot from a CD
drive the Win95 will start, but I get a message that it can only work from MS
DOS. How can I manage this dual boot?

Any machine that's good enough to run XP is unlikely to run win95.

Win95 usually requires a patch to run on a cpu over 300 mhz
and unless win95 can be booted to safe mode, it needs to be manually
extracted and installed from dos. Also:
from my experimentation, the patch does not always work.

Additionally, not likely to have any drivers for the newer chipsets,
though that alone would not prevent Win95 from running.

If you really want to run Win95 I suggest running it in a virtual machine

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have installed a 2nd hard drive to boot into Win 95, but so far I have
found no way to install the 95 on the new drive. Pc always boots into the C
drive with XP. Have tried a partition manager but that only made the 2nd
drive disappear from the system. If I change the BIOS to boot from a CD
drive the Win95 will start, but I get a message that it can only work from MS
DOS. How can I manage this dual boot?

If your C: drive is formatted using the FAT32 file system, MS-MVP
Doug Knox has kindly provided clear instructions that can be adapted to
Win95:

Install Windows 98 after XP is Installed.
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm

Otherwise:

The simplest way I've found to dual boot between Win9x/Me and WinXP
would be to partition your drive(s) roughly as follows:

C: Primary FAT32 Win9x/Me/Legacy Apps
D: Extended NTFS WinXP/Modern Apps

Adjust the partition sizes according to your actual hard drive(s)
size and the amount of space you'd like to allocate to each OS and its
applications.

Create the partitions using Win9x's FDISK so you can enable large
disk support (FAT32). (No need for 3rd party partitioning
utilities/boot managers and their frequent complications.)

Install Win9x/Me first, being sure to select "C:\Windows" (or
D:\Windows, if you prefer) when asked for the default Windows
directory. When you subsequently install WinXP, be sure to specify
"D:\Winnt" (or "D:\Windows," "C:\Winnt" as referred/applicable) when
asked for the default Windows directory, to place it in the other
partition. The WinXP installation routine will automatically set up a
Multi-boot menu for you. The default settings for this menu can be
readily edited from within WinXP. NOTE: If you elect to place
Win9x/Me on the "D:" drive, you'll _have_ to leave the "C:" drive as
FAT32.

This method can be adapted to using 2 physical hard drives by
placing the boot partition (C:, which still must be FAT32) and either
of the operating systems on the Primary Master hard drive, and the
second operating system on the second hard drive.

It is also possible to have a 3rd partition for shared
applications, but it would be necessary for such a partition to be
formatted in the common file format (FAT32). The applications would
also have to be installed into each OS (to ensure proper system file
placement and registry updates), one at a time, but the bulk of the
program files could be located on this common partition. I do not,
however, actually recommend doing this as, if you were to uninstall
such an application from one OS, you may not be able to gracefully
uninstall it from the second OS, having already deleted crucial
installation data during the first uninstall action.

Just about everything you need to know (URLs may wrap):

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q217/2/10.ASP

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/multiboot.asp


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

You can do it without a third party boot manager but you will have to
place the Windows 95 disk in a Primary Master position. It isn't all that
hard to do but it takes a bit of fiddling about. If you want to go it
that way (instead of using a boot manager) post again.

John

If the OP uses XOSL then he can leave his WinXP disk in the master position.
XOSL will replace the MBR, then cause the boot process to invoke the XOSL
boot manager which would be located on the Win95 disk.

 

[Anteaus]

I could also sugggest taking a look at virtualisation servers.

There are several free ones available, from Microsoft, Vmware (server
version is free) and Virtualbox.

Advantage over dual-booting is that you don't need to keep -well, rebooting,
you can run both simultaneously. There are some limitations in terms of that
you can do in a VM, but they meet most requirements for testing software,
etc. It also allows you to run an older OS on a mobo for which no drivers are
available, since the OS 'sees' standardised hardware instead of that of the
mobo.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I could also sugggest taking a look at virtualisation servers.

There are several free ones available, from Microsoft, Vmware (server
version is free) and Virtualbox.

Advantage over dual-booting is that you don't need to keep -well,
rebooting,
you can run both simultaneously. There are some limitations in terms of
that
you can do in a VM, but they meet most requirements for testing software,
etc. It also allows you to run an older OS on a mobo for which no drivers
are
available, since the OS 'sees' standardised hardware instead of that of
the
mobo.

E.g. from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx

 

[John John (MVP)]

If the OP uses XOSL then he can leave his WinXP disk in the master position.
XOSL will replace the MBR, then cause the boot process to invoke the XOSL
boot manager which would be located on the Win95 disk.

That (using XOSL) would certainly be the easiest way to go about it,
plus it's free!

John

 

[sarahandus]

I did put the 2nd disc in the 1st boot position in the BIOS, but that just
delayed the startup. I have 2 physical hard drive discs installed on the
PC. I do not want to disturb the C disc with XP, it is running beautifully
and trouble free. I want to install 95 on the other disc to play the older
games - hopefully.

pegasus,
It wasn't a boot manager, but a partition manager because I wanted to
partition the 95 disc. (Paragon Partition Personal)

Would it work if I disabled the XP disc, disconnecting it and starting up
with a Win 98 startup disc?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I did put the 2nd disc in the 1st boot position in the BIOS, but that just
delayed the startup. I have 2 physical hard drive discs installed on the
PC. I do not want to disturb the C disc with XP, it is running
beautifully
and trouble free. I want to install 95 on the other disc to play the
older
games - hopefully.

pegasus,
It wasn't a boot manager, but a partition manager because I wanted to
partition the 95 disc. (Paragon Partition Personal)

Would it work if I disabled the XP disc, disconnecting it and starting up
with a Win 98 startup disc?

Yes, it might, depending on your BIOS - why not give it a try?

 

[sarahandus]

Any machine that's good enough to run XP is unlikely to run win95.

Win95 usually requires a patch to run on a cpu over 300 mhz
and unless win95 can be booted to safe mode, it needs to be manually
extracted and installed from dos. Also:
from my experimentation, the patch does not always work.

Additionally, not likely to have any drivers for the newer chipsets,
though that alone would not prevent Win95 from running.

If you really want to run Win95 I suggest running it in a virtual machine

Since all other option failed, I'll look into VM. Especially since I
already have a copy.

Thanks all~

 

[philo]

Since all other option failed, I'll look into VM. Especially since I
already have a copy.

Thanks all~

It should work...but post back with the results.

 

[Plato]

I have installed a 2nd hard drive to boot into Win 95, but so far I have
found no way to install the 95 on the new drive. Pc always boots into the C

Booting to win95 is a waste of time. If you want win95, then use win95B
or win95B w/usb disk.