Multi-Boot - XP on Master / 98SE on Slave?

[Guest]

Hi - I've read several MS Multi-Boot articles and searched some postings. I have read a lot about setting up multiple partitions on the SAME hard drive for multiple OS's but what about having two different physical hard drives - one running Windows XP (Master), the other Windows 98 SE (Save).

The situation is I have a 4.5 year old PIII 733 with 768MB Memory running a single hard drive with Windows 98SE. I plan to purchase a brand new hard drive, install it as the Master and set the jumpers to the existing hard drive with Windows 98SE to make it slave. I'd then like to do a clean install of XP on the new (Master) hard drive but still be able to choose to boot into the slave drive to run Windows 98SE if I choose to. Will XP's Multi-boot manager allow this? Do I need an external multi-boot program to handle this?

Thanks in advance!
Doug

 

[Gerry]

This will be rather simple since you have 98SE already
installed. Don't change your drive settings though. Keep
your 98SE as master and set the new drive as slave. Take
your Windows XP setup and start the setup routine from
windows 98. Just load the CD and the routine will start
up automatically. There will be an option during the
setup routine to either upgrade 98 or a clean install on
another partition or drive. Just select that option and
go from there. The system will create a file that will
load at the beginning so that you can select to boot into
98 or XP. Good luck.

-----Original Message-----
Hi - I've read several MS Multi-Boot articles and

searched some postings. I have read a lot about setting
up multiple partitions on the SAME hard drive for multiple
OS's but what about having two different physical hard
drives - one running Windows XP (Master), the other
Windows 98 SE (Save).

The situation is I have a 4.5 year old PIII 733 with

768MB Memory running a single hard drive with Windows
98SE. I plan to purchase a brand new hard drive, install
it as the Master and set the jumpers to the existing hard
drive with Windows 98SE to make it slave. I'd then like
to do a clean install of XP on the new (Master) hard drive
but still be able to choose to boot into the slave drive
to run Windows 98SE if I choose to. Will XP's Multi-boot
manager allow this? Do I need an external multi-boot
program to handle this?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi - I've read several MS Multi-Boot articles and searched some postings.

I have read a lot about setting up multiple partitions on the SAME hard
drive for multiple OS's but what about having two different physical hard
drives - one running Windows XP (Master), the other Windows 98 SE (Save).

The situation is I have a 4.5 year old PIII 733 with 768MB Memory running

a single hard drive with Windows 98SE. I plan to purchase a brand new hard
drive, install it as the Master and set the jumpers to the existing hard
drive with Windows 98SE to make it slave. I'd then like to do a clean
install of XP on the new (Master) hard drive but still be able to choose to
boot into the slave drive to run Windows 98SE if I choose to. Will XP's
Multi-boot manager allow this? Do I need an external multi-boot program to
handle this?

Thanks in advance!
Doug

There are several ways of going about this. Here is a clean and structured
method.

1. Get a copy of XOSL. It's a very nice boot loader, and it's free!
2. Install it on your new disk in a 15 MByte partition.
3. Install WinXP on the new disk. Make it an NTFS partition.
4. Install your old disk as a slave disk.
5. Include WinXP in the XOSL boot menu.
6. Include Win98 in the XOSL boot menu.
7. Tell XOSL to hide the Win98 partition when booting into WinXP.
8. Tell XOSL to hide the WinXP partitioin when booting into Win98.

You now have two OSs on your machine, each completely separate from the
other, and each residing on a drive that will be visible as drive C:.

If you require a data drive that is visible both to WinXP and Win98 then you
need to do things differently. Post again if this is what you want.

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

This will be rather simple since you have 98SE already
installed. Don't change your drive settings though. Keep
your 98SE as master and set the new drive as slave. Take
your Windows XP setup and start the setup routine from
windows 98. Just load the CD and the routine will start
up automatically. There will be an option during the
setup routine to either upgrade 98 or a clean install on
another partition or drive. Just select that option and
go from there. The system will create a file that will
load at the beginning so that you can select to boot into
98 or XP. Good luck.

I respectfully suggest an alternative approach. The difficulty with your
suggestion is that you cannot remove the old win98 disk at any time in
the future. You can wipe out win98 on that disk, but it will always be
C: and XP will always be on D: with the boot loader on C:

If you temporarily remove the win98 disk, install the new disk, install
XP clean on that new disk, and then re-install the old win98 disk,
you'll have two independent bootable drives and will be able to select
the drive to boot from the BIOS.

If you then want to modify the XP boot loader to boot win98 as a second
option, you can boot the Recovery Console from the XP CD (first repair
option) and run the command "bootcfg /rebuild" to add win98 to your boot
menu.

 

[Guest]

Hi Kent,

I really appreciate this alternative suggestion. I was in fact troubled by having to keep XP as the Slave (D drive) and Win98 as the Master (C drive, or at least the HDD drive there with the boot loader). I was also wondering about doing something like you've suggested but you know, somehow I wasn't completely sure I could just tell the BIOS to boot from C or D but I'm sure after reading what you wrote that I can. I will check my BIOS. Any downside to using the BIOS? Strange, nobody has suggested it, as it seem so much easier and I can have XP as NTFS as I desire and still boot to 98's FAT32 when I want.

Also,if I follow your suggestion and temporarily install XP on the new HDD as the only drive, can I format it as NTFS and later using the recovery method add Win98 (Fat32) as a bootable choice from the slave drive since it's formated as Fat32 (assuming I will even want to do this if I can simply use the BIOS as a temorary measure until I have everything working with my system and software with XP)? Which OS would have to be Master and which Slave? Doesn't the loader have to be on a Fat32 drive in this case?

Thanks in advance Kent and to all - thank you for your helpful suggestions as they are all worth consideration.

Regards,
Doug

 

[Guest]

Hi Kent,

Thank you very much for this alternative suggestion because I was concerned with having to keep XP as the Slave drive on D on my new HDD and the drive where 98 is loaded as the Master. I have been wondering in fact if the BIOS could be used to simply select booting off of C or D but I wasn't sure I could do this so your suggestion is really well timed. I will check my BIOS after reading your suggestion. Any downside to using the BIOS? I wonder why nobody else has suggested this because it seems so much easier to use the BIOS if this is the case becuse I can install XP on the new HDD as NTFS as I want and still keep 98SE around on my existing HDD formatted as Fat32.

Also, assuming I'm not just content with using the BIOS to select either drive to boot off of until I have XP installed with all my software and needed drivers for my existing hardware - if I decide to use the recovery method to add 98SE HDD as a boot choice to XP's OS Loader, am I correct in that I would have to locate 98 on the C drive and XP on D such the the loader would have to boot from a Fat32 in order to select either Fat32 (98) or NTFS (XP)? Then wouldn't I be stuck in the situation of having to keep XP as the D drive?

Thanks in advance and thanks to all for your helpful suggestions. There are merits to each approach and all worth consideration. If I can do what I want without a 3rd party boot manager and without having to create new partitions that will be preferable.

Regards,
Doug

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

I really appreciate this alternative suggestion. I was in fact
troubled by having to keep XP as the Slave (D drive) and Win98 as the
Master (C drive, or at least the HDD drive there with the boot
loader). I was also wondering about doing something like you've
suggested but you know, somehow I wasn't completely sure I could just
tell the BIOS to boot from C or D but I'm sure after reading what you
wrote that I can. I will check my BIOS. Any downside to using the
BIOS? Strange, nobody has suggested it, as it seem so much easier
and I can have XP as NTFS as I desire and still boot to 98's FAT32
when I want.

You can format XP as NTFS, but win98 won't be able to read that disk. XP
will be able to read FAT32.

The BIOS is a little clumsy in my opinion. I would rather use the NT
boot loader that XP uses to choose one or the other.

Also,if I follow your suggestion and temporarily install XP on the
new HDD as the only drive, can I format it as NTFS and later using
the recovery method add Win98 (Fat32) as a bootable choice from the
slave drive since it's formated as Fat32 (assuming I will even want
to do this if I can simply use the BIOS as a temorary measure until I
have everything working with my system and software with XP)? Which
OS would have to be Master and which Slave? Doesn't the loader have
to be on a Fat32 drive in this case?

The XP install is not temporary. You can add win98 to the boot menu even
though it is FAT32. XP understands both formats. win98 only understands
FAT, not NTFS. You can later remove win98 from the boot menu and use
that disk as a data disk (D.

Hardware Master/Slave doesn't matter, but I would put each disk on a
separate IDE channel making both Masters on their respective channels
and put the CD drive as secondary on one of the channels. This should
speed up disk-to-disk data transfers.

Now that I recall, Doug Knox has a page on multi-booting 98 and XP that
indicates there are problems using NTFS for XP when multi-booting XP/98
with the NT boot loader. See
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm for details. It would
be better to continue using BIOS choice or get a third-party boot
manager if you want to install XP on NTFS and boot win98 from another
drive. NTFS is definitely worthwhile esp. for very large disks.

Thanks in advance Kent and to all - thank you for your helpful
suggestions as they are all worth consideration.

Regards, Doug

You are most welcome.