Windows98 & Windows NT4

[Jorden]

Hi all,

I want to be able to start up my PC with either Windows98 or Windows NT4, without having to disconnect one of my harddrives, or rummage around in the BIOS to tell the PC from what hdd to boot.

On my first hdd I put Win98, FAT32
On my second hdd I put WinNt4, NTFS

Anyone got an idea how to do this? I tried the multimenu system, but that uses the config.sys and autoexec.bat of Win98 already, therefor rendering it useless to start the NTFS...

Help!!!

Jorden.

[Jammrock]

There is an alternative you can use if you absolutely must use a FAT32 on your Win98 partition. But I warn you, any data on the FAT32 partitions will not be readable by WinNT.

Get:
Win98
WinNT
PartitionMagic by PowerQuest

1) Install Win98 using FAT32 like normal.
2) Install PM and make sure you create the PM rescue disk in Win98!!!!
3) Install WinNT from boot disks onto a new drive. Let WinNT create the partition, it likes it much better if it does.
4) Boot to the PM Rescue disk. Set the Win98 partition as active. Reboot.
5) Install BootMagic, it installs seperate from PM. It will auto recognize both bootable partition and set the OS/2 Boot manager as the active partiton.

Next time you boot the BootMagic OS selector screen will show up and you can choose what to boot in to.

Jammrock

[TheMorg]

I've used the IBM Boot Manager bundled with PM too, and it seems to work fine, although I've heard of people who have problems. I'm happy to pass on a couple of tips given to me:

1. Make sure you get an up-to-date patch from Powerquest's web site. For example, I think one version of PM (when used unpatched) did not create FAT32 partitions properly.

2. Adhere to NT and Win98 boot filesystem requirements. Doesn't the start of NT's boot filesystem have to be within the first 1000 blocks of the drive?

3. Use PM to create a backup of a first-boot Win98 partition, so that you don't have to go through the tedious routine of deleting everything before reinstalling every couple of months. It doesn't have to be full-sized, and you just have to copy the filesystem over your 'live' Win98 boot partition.

[Jorden]

Thanks for the quick replies already, guys.

I hadn't in mind to fdisk and format my C:-drive and reinstall Win98 on a FAT16.

As I said, all is installed already and working pretty good, just the difficulty of telling the PC what hdd to boot from annoys me. I only use WinNT to learn more about it, not for a network or other purposes.

So I guess I must be on the lookout for Partition Magic...

Oh, any idea how to transfer data from my Win98 drive to the NTFS drive?? It says in Winblows98 that the E:-drive (WinNT) is an illegal device

Jorden.

[Jorden]

Ah, forgot to format that drive

Never mind, had some emails from Maggi, and I'll go on the other tour: fdisk the second harddrive again, remove all NTFS partitions, insert one or two FAT16 partitions, install WINNT on the primary FAT16 and leave it at FAT16, instead of reformatting it to NTFS.

Took me all morning to setup the drive as I have it now, so maybe by tonight it's running as I want.

I just hope I can steer the installation program to my second hdd, instead of it looking at the first hdd and the FAT32 there.

If you miss me ...

Jorden.

------------------
Official MURC-police
Official MURCaholic !!
-------------------
You and me baby, ain't nothing but mamals
So lets do it, like they do on the Discovery Channel
-------------------
Holly is nr. 1

[Jorden]

Okay... back

Copied all i386 files to the 2Gb partition FAT 16, then used fdisk to say it was a bootable drive, installed Winnt (90% faster than from CD-ROM!!!), went through the installation proggie, installed SP4, shut down, reconnected my 1st hdd, restarted in win98, looked for a boot manager and found Partition Manager v2.37.10 ...

Seems it can tell me what drive it wants to start up from, but haven't figured it out yet... it's free-ware...

Tell y'all later, okay?

Jorden.

------------------
Official MURC-police
Official MURCaholic !!
-------------------
You and me baby, ain't nothing but mamals
So lets do it, like they do on the Discovery Channel
-------------------
Holly is nr. 1

[Ant]

Install Win 98 then NT4 and it will all be taken care of. Well that is if you change your primary HDD to FAT16, NT4 install won't work with FAT32. Once installed you will have the NT multiboot option that allows you to go to either OS.

[Maggi]

Don't forget to install SP5 ...

... and if you're running US-NT, go for SP6 ...

LOL

------------------
Cheers,
Maggi
________________________

Working Rig:
Asus P2B-DS @ 103MHz FSB
Double Pentium III-450 @ 464 MHz
4 x 128MB CAS2 SDRAM
Matrox Millennium G400 32MB DualHead
Nokia 445Xi (21")
Nokia 447Xpro (17")

Home Rig:
Asus P2B-S Bios 1010 @ 100MHz FSB
Celeron 333A @ 500MHz
2 x 128MB CAS2 SDRAM
Matrox Millennium G400 32MB DualHead @ 150/200MHz
CTX VL710T (17")

[Jorden]

Hi Maggi,

Hey thanks for the advice on getting SP6 for WinNT4... could you have warned for the file being between 34.5 and that massive 72Mb???? I won't d/l it from home... Have asked someone with a 100Mbit connection to d/l it for me and burn it on a CD-ROM... will have it this week...

Oh, btw, it's for all languages WinNT4... not only US !!!

Jorden.