multiboot: DOS, 98SE, XP Pro

[Guest]

So I'm trying to set up a triple-boot system on my machine. I had a clean 75
Gb hard drive to start with.

I used a DOS 6.22 boot disk to create a 1 Mb primary partition (C and
formatted it FAT16. I then installed DOS 6.22 on C:, no problems.

I then booted with the XP Pro cd and used the hard drive
parttioning/formatting utility during setup to create and format 3 new
partitions on the drive. D: is 15 Gb FAT32, E: and F: are 29 Gb NTFS.

I then installed win98SE to D:, and followed that up with installing XP Pro
to E:.

The problem is that Win98SE seems to have "hijacked" the C: drive from DOS
6.22. It has rewritten many of the system file in the root of C:, archiving
the DOS 6.22 ones as filename.dos. The result is that when the boot menu
comes up I can only choose between XP Pro or 98SE, and don't have the option
of booting into DOS 6.22.

Is it possible to have a triple-boot setup on a single hard-drive, or am I
tilting at windmills? If it can be done, any advice would be greatly
appreciated.

TIA - Pete

 

[Shenan Stanley]

So I'm trying to set up a triple-boot system on my machine. I had a
clean 75 Gb hard drive to start with.

I used a DOS 6.22 boot disk to create a 1 Mb primary partition (C
and formatted it FAT16. I then installed DOS 6.22 on C:, no
problems.

I then booted with the XP Pro cd and used the hard drive
parttioning/formatting utility during setup to create and format 3
new partitions on the drive. D: is 15 Gb FAT32, E: and F: are 29 Gb
NTFS.

I then installed win98SE to D:, and followed that up with
installing XP Pro to E:.

The problem is that Win98SE seems to have "hijacked" the C: drive
from DOS
6.22. It has rewritten many of the system file in the root of C:,
archiving the DOS 6.22 ones as filename.dos. The result is that
when the boot menu comes up I can only choose between XP Pro or
98SE, and don't have the option of booting into DOS 6.22.

Is it possible to have a triple-boot setup on a single hard-drive,
or am I tilting at windmills? If it can be done, any advice would
be greatly appreciated.

How to Multiple Boot Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT,
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, and MS-DOS
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/217210

 

[Guest]

Main thing when setting up a multi-partition disk is to make sure the
partition you're installing-to is the Active partition. Otherwise, nasty
things will happen like bootsectors being over-written, the OS being on a
drive other than C: etc.

Couple of tips; Most DOS programs will run under Windows 98's included DOS.
-In fact many run better. Using this can be as simple as adding a line

[Options]
BootGUI=0

to MSDOS.SYS so the GUI doesn't load at startup - you then type WIN to start
Windows. Limitation is that you can't run Windows 3.1 this way. But for most
DOS purposes it works fine. Plus you can use FAT32, and much larger
partitions.

Have a look at Microsoft Virtual Machine, or VMWare. Advantage of this
approach is no need to partition, plus you can run more than one OS at once
without rebooting the main OS. There are one or two limitations but in
general it's a lot less hassle than multibooting.

 

[Guest]

Pete -
I've been trying to figure out something similar, and it turns out there's a
much better reference on the MS website than you got from Shenan (I got that
same reference from someone else and it didn't help with the actual booting).
So, if you're still interested or need help with errors or whatever, try
checking out http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306559/EN-US/ How to create a
multiple-boot system in Windows XP. I'm just about to use it now (after
doing a complete install that didn't work because I still have my old XP on
what's now a slave drive - don't try that!).
Rose