question for MS support pls: win98SE to win2000 pro

[ktm]

current system Pentium III 850MHz 256 K RAM,
WIN98SE; FAT 32; 2 physical drives 1st C: 5GB,and 2nd
(DEFG 20GB). Running all office 2000 application and DSL,
together with Hub networking -- to a secondary Win98
machine.

I plan to upgrade this main machine to Win2000pro; I think
i have all the 2000pro drivers ready for this upgrade
However, because of concerns on initial teething issues i
am considering to do the option of keeping the 98 install,
initially in parallel but making a clean 2000pro install
(Q: does it have to be in another drive ?), and then when
all is well scratch out the win98.

Please confirm whether such a parallel approach is worth
it feasible and advisable.
If yes: pls, provide setup hints, links -- and exactly
what files to delete later { when all is well} and how --
so that it later boots automatically into WIN2000pro

If no: pls provide link to recommended procedure.
and in either case, pls elaborate on which should be the
boot-disk drive during this work. And any other
precautions I should take.
Thanks

 

[Dave Patrick]

When dual-booting it's always best to install OS's on separate partitions.
When you're confident the Windows 2000 install is a success, best to do a
clean install to regain the rest of the drive. To do a clean install, either
boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom or setup disks. The set of four install
disks can be created from your Win2k CD-rom; change to the \bootdisk
directory on the cd-rom and execute makeboot.exe (from dos) or makebt32.exe
(from 32 bit) and follow the prompts.

When you get to the point, delete the existing NTFS and or other partitions
found. After you delete the partition(s) abort the install, then again
restart the pc booting the CD-Rom or setup disks to avoid unexpected drive
letter assignments with your new install.

Else you can remove the option you no longer want from boot.ini found in the
root of the system partition.
Control Panel|System|Advanced|Startup and Recovery, choose the correct
System Startup option as default, then you'll need to delete the options you
want removed from the boot.ini, it's a system, hidden file in the root of
the system partition. So you'll need to show-all-files, hidden, system in
Explorer. Explorer|Tools|Folder Options|View, then radio button for "Show
hidden files and folders", then uncheck the box for "Hide protected
operating system files" You should end up with something like this (below).
The timeout value is not functional when there is only one startup choice.
Then you can remove the \windows directory from the root of the system
partition.


The line your going to remove from the boot.ini will be similar to
C:\="Microsoft Windows"

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect