Windows 98/ Win NT/2000 dual boot

[GT98]

Well I just orded myself a nice 30.7 GB western digital HD to put in my system to replace my current 13GB drive I have. My question is that I want to make two 15GB Partions, one for Win98 and the other for WinNT/2000 when it comes out. I want to be able to dual boot between the two, how would I go about doing this? One other question...I planning on making the NT partion NTFS since FAT16 sucks really bad with Drive space. Does Win2000 offer the option of switching the NTFS back to FAT32 if you need too? I have partionmagic but I don't remember if this an option or not. Thanks

Scott


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Abit BH6 with a P3-450@558,128mb RAM,G400 MAX,SB Live!, Optiquest V95 19in montor, Asus 40x CD-ROM, Aopen 5x DVD-ROM, 2x CDR, WD 13.6 GB HD,SupraMax 56k modem

[Alegria]

You will have to create a primary partition first and to install Windows 98 first If that is done you can move on to WIN2K. they shouldn't be installed on the same partition.
Changing NTFS back to FAT32? No. Partition Magic (which version?) could do the trick.

Regards, Sascha

[DentyCracker]

If you make the nt partition ntfs then you'll have to reinstall to change it to fat32. Why not create 2 fat32 partitions initially. Not sure but you may be able to convert fat32 to ntfs. Of course you can't install nt4 on a fat32 partition

[Raptor^]

Whats the problem with installing Win2000 and 98 on the same partition?
My machine still seems to work ok... Well, win98 is no more broken than it was before anyhow.

[Raptor^]

My approach is put both OS on the same small (1.5 gig max) boot partition, and make that FAT16. With 98 it doesnt matter which order you install them in, cos it doesnt break NTs boot loader like 95 used to.
Then set up whatever larger partitions you need, formatting then to FAT32 (you can get a FAT32 driver for NT4, provided you dont use it on your boot drive, and it seems stable).
If I want to use the same piece of software in both OSs I install it to the same place in each. This hasnt caused me any probs, but I don't use much software in both OSs, winzip and the like.
That way if you need to get at the OSs in DOS you still can, for when they break.
If the worst comes to the worst you can rebuild the boot partition without losing anything except your OS.

If you upgrade to Win2000 and find you no longer need 98, you can convert FAT32 to NTFS 5 from within Win2000

[Alegria]

Hi folks,
the problem with putting 9x and NT/2K on one single partition is not only that you have to take the smallest common file system denominator but also as mentioned before that either OS can get confused by the Program Files folder they both try to use.
You would have to rename it before installing the second OS to create a new program files directory, make it hidden and read only each time you dual boot, rename both upon each boot, install the same software on each OS. That's not worth it.
FAT32 file system drivers don't work upon boot time in NT4. So there is no way of installing NT on a FAT32 partition. 2K works alright. NT also wont put the boot loader on a FAT32 partition. You would have to use an alternative BootManager. Nah, that's just not worth the fumbling.

Regards,Sascha

[GT98]

let me clear up what my plans are and how I plan on doing it:

Install Win98 on the first Partion as FAT32
Install WinNT 4.0 on the second partion formated as NTFS, then upgrade to Win2000 when it hits the market next month.

Am I gonna run into any problems with the boot loader? or anything else?

Scott


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Abit BH6 with a P3-450@558,128mb RAM,G400 MAX,SB Live!, Optiquest V95 19in montor, Asus 40x CD-ROM, Aopen 5x DVD-ROM, 2x CDR, WD 13.6 GB HD,SupraMax 56k modem

[DentyCracker]

Methinks NT4 will scream bloody blue murder and tell you to f*** *ff. I think it needs the first partition to be fat16 or ntfs. If you don't have Partition Magic then perhaps you should hold off on NT until you get 2K.

[Alegria]

Good Morning GT98,

and , yes you will have trouble.
NT4 won't put its loader onto the FAT32 partition. You would run into the setup trouble someone mentioned earlier. NT would recognize the FAT32 partition as not being able to be written to.

You could resolve the matter by creating a small primary FAT12/16 partition using 98's FDISK (as small as it lets you create it, then creating an extended partition with 98's FDISK that does not occupy all of the remaining free disk space (save enough for NT4), create a logical drive with FAT32 support, format and install 98 on this partition. Boot up and install NT in the remaining space by creating a new partition;
by now you should have three partitions;
Remember though that NT4 will not recognize a partition bigger than 4096MB even for NTFS as long as you didn't update your ATAPI.SYS from SP3/4/5 on the boot disks you should be using for this procedure (Booting from CD would definitely result in the 4GB limit).

This should work fine so far.
Complete your NT installation and install what you need (e.g. display drivers, sound...). Install at least SP5 and claim the rest of your disk space.

That is one way to do it.

Regards, Sascha

[Le Bodge]

I did a similar thing last weekend on a rather speedy Quantum 10K SCSI drive which I paired with my existing IDE drive.

Check out http://www.ntfaq.com/ntfaq/install29.html for useful information.

The bottom line is that the IDE drive is now split into two partitions, the first being a 2 Gig FAT 16 for the boot menu and common files. The rest of the IDE drive is a FAT 32 partition for WIN 98.

The SCSI drive is purely NTFS for NT – a 3 Gig partition for the OS and the rest for data.