Fred615 said:
I have a system with 2 hard drives partitioned into C/D and E/F. I am
currently running XP Pro and would like to create a partition and install
98SE so I can use a printer for which the manufacturer has never written an
XP driver.
Can I install 98SE on the second hard drive or must it be on the primary
drive? Must 98SE be on an NTSF partition or a FAT32 partition? And does it
matter if the drive is IDE or SATA?
Can this be done and if so, where can I find detailed instructions ?
It's doable, if your C: drive (the one housing WinXP) is formatted
using the FAT32 file system.
MS-MVP Doug Knox has kindly provided clear instructions:
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
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