Win 2000 Pro Dual Boot

[Karl]

I have Win 2000 Pro installed on a 120GB hard drive, C:
(NTFS formatted) and Windows 98SE installed on a 5GB
second hard drive, E: (formatted FAT 32). The 5GB drive
was installed after Win 2000 came up and running.

How can I now setup Win 2000 so I can select either
operating system without having to do pushups by deleting
and reloading? Please assume I am just a beginner.

If this is the wrong newsgroup for the question, please
let me know what group would be correct.

Thank you for your patient help and assistance.

Karl

 

[Dave Patrick]

The boot sector for both OS's must reside on the System partition C:\ (first
primary active partition) Below assumes that Windows 2000 is installed on
the first primary active partition C:\ and that the partition is formatted
fat32.

First create an ERD; Programs|Accessories|System Tools|Backup, then choose
ERD, then if you check the box for "Also backup....", then the reg will also
be backed up to
%windir%\repair\RegBack
leaving the
%windir%\repair\
directory files intact as original installation.

Then install Win98 to second drive (possibly an over-the-top install). This
will regenerate a Win98 boot sector on the system partition.(also destroys
the NT boot sector). If Windows 2000 partition is NTFS then this wont work
as Win98 can't write a boot sector to NTFS. In this case you'll need a third
party boot manager.

Then boot the Windows 2000 Setup disks and choose "R" for Repair, then "R"
to use repair process, then "M" for manual repair, choose "Inspect Startup
Environment" and "Inspect Boot Sector" only. This will cause bootsect.dos to
be created from the contents of the Win98 boot sector.

Some background info;
When you dualboot Win9x and Windows 2000; Windows 2000 creates a file named
bootsect.dos; if you select an operating system other than Windows 2000,
NTLDR loads bootsect.dos and passes control to it. The operating system then
starts up as normal, because bootsect.dos contains the boot sector that was
on the primary partition before you installed Windows 2000, hence the need
to go through the steps above to create a bootsect.dos


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| I have Win 2000 Pro installed on a 120GB hard drive, C:
| (NTFS formatted) and Windows 98SE installed on a 5GB
| second hard drive, E: (formatted FAT 32). The 5GB drive
| was installed after Win 2000 came up and running.
|
| How can I now setup Win 2000 so I can select either
| operating system without having to do pushups by deleting
| and reloading? Please assume I am just a beginner.
|
| If this is the wrong newsgroup for the question, please
| let me know what group would be correct.
|
| Thank you for your patient help and assistance.
|
| Karl

 

[Karl]

Thank you, Dave,
for your quick and very informative answer.

If I go via a third party boot manager, would something
like V-Com's System Commander do the job? Are there any
others you would be willing to recommend?

I have in hand V-Com's Partition Commander. (Naive
questions follow.) Can a small boot partition (what
size?) formatted FAT 32 be fixed up on the 120GB drive
with Partition Commander, leave the remainder NTFS, and
have Win 2000 Pro function OK as now? Would I have to
modify Win 2000 Pro somehow to have it function properly
as a result of resizing? Win 2000 Pro could then function
as a multiboot manager.

Thank you again for your help. Hopefully, I am not
imposing on you too much.

Regards,

Karl

 

[Tim Judd]

Thank you, Dave,
for your quick and very informative answer.

If I go via a third party boot manager, would something
like V-Com's System Commander do the job? Are there any
others you would be willing to recommend?

I have in hand V-Com's Partition Commander. (Naive
questions follow.) Can a small boot partition (what
size?) formatted FAT 32 be fixed up on the 120GB drive
with Partition Commander, leave the remainder NTFS, and
have Win 2000 Pro function OK as now? Would I have to
modify Win 2000 Pro somehow to have it function properly
as a result of resizing? Win 2000 Pro could then function
as a multiboot manager.

Thank you again for your help. Hopefully, I am not
imposing on you too much.

Regards,

Karl

The minimum FAT32 partition MUST be at least 512MB in size. FDISK won't
allow anything smaller.

FAT16, an older standard, is supported by both Win9x and Win2k.. If you
do go this way of a small boot mgr, use fat16 (which is what I would
recommend anyway, FAT16 is damn near universally known.)

GL

 

[Dave Patrick]

Sorry, no experience with the third party boot managers. You may want to
start a new thread on this subject.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Thank you, Dave,
| for your quick and very informative answer.
|
| If I go via a third party boot manager, would something
| like V-Com's System Commander do the job? Are there any
| others you would be willing to recommend?
|
| I have in hand V-Com's Partition Commander. (Naive
| questions follow.) Can a small boot partition (what
| size?) formatted FAT 32 be fixed up on the 120GB drive
| with Partition Commander, leave the remainder NTFS, and
| have Win 2000 Pro function OK as now? Would I have to
| modify Win 2000 Pro somehow to have it function properly
| as a result of resizing? Win 2000 Pro could then function
| as a multiboot manager.
|
| Thank you again for your help. Hopefully, I am not
| imposing on you too much.
|
| Regards,
|
| Karl
|