Need help setting up a dual OS (1 Viewer)

[Jeff]

I'm currently running Windows 98 and I want to go to XP but I'm not ready to give up '98 just yet so since I have two 40 gig hard drives, I've thought about putting XP on the 2nd one (drive D). I know XP has a menu at bootup that lets you select between the two, but will it work if XP is on drive D?


Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Graeme Clark]

Yup, I have a similar setup now.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Setting up a dual-boot with 2000 or XP when you already have Windows 95 or 98 on the system is dead easy.

You will need put XP onto a different partition from where 98 resides. That partition can be on a separate physical drive, it's up to you. It is possible to install XP onto the same partition as 98, but it can be troublesome and means you can't use the NTFS file system. Even Microsoft don't recommend it.

The first thing you need to do is to decide where to put XP and to configure the partitions accordingly. When you're ready to install, boot into 98 and insert the XP CD. When you begin to install, choose the new installation option. Do not choose 'upgrade' because it'll overwrite your 98 installation.

You need to be a bit careful here. Somewhere on the first few install screens there is an 'Advanced' button. Click on it and tick the box that says "Ask me which parititon to use" (or words to that effect). If you don't enable this option, XP will install to C: which is what you want to avoid.

At some point the installation procedure will bring up a screen showing your current drives. This is where you tell XP where to put itself. You can create and delete partitions from this section as well as format the installation partition in whatever file system you want.

NTFS really is the best option for XP/2000. It's more secure (can't be read from DOS and allows proper folder/file security settings) and is more efficent too. However - if you do install XP using NTFS, then Windows 98 or DOS will not be able to even see that partition, let alone get to any files on it.

When the installation procedure is complete you'll have the NT bootloader menu appear upon bootup. Choose your OS and you're off.

I've done this a million times, so just ask if there's anything you're unsure of.

 

[Jeff]

Rob, thanks a bunch!!!

 

[Michael Harris]

When installing XP for dual boot, can one use the upgrade version or does one need the full version?

 

[Ken Chan]

NTFS really is the best option for XP/2000. It's more secure (can't be read from DOS and allows proper folder/file security settings)

I've been wondering: does NTFS actually encrypt the data, or is it just that the disk structure is different? (Don't have a disk sector program handy....)

//Ken

 

[Rob Gillespie]

I've been wondering: does NTFS actually encrypt the data, or is it just that the disk structure is different?

I don't know the technicals in any detail. I know the cluster size is a lot smaller. I don't believe NTFS is encrypted as-such as this is still available as an option on NTFS partitions.

 

[DerrickRemmert]

The first thing you need to do is to decide where to put XP and to configure the partitions accordingly.

This is probably a stupid question but I'm going to ask it anyway. Let's say you decide to use separate hard drives for each OS. How do you configure the partitions?

 

[Jeff]

One more question...If I want to go XP exclusively later on and make my second hard drive (Drive D with XP) my main drive, Drive C, is it easy to change this since XP is looking for everything in drive D?


Thanks,


Jeff

 

[Rob Gillespie]

If I want to go XP exclusively later on and make my second hard drive (Drive D with XP) my main drive, Drive C, is it easy to change this since XP is looking for everything in drive D?

It wont work by simply swapping the drives over. The system can only boot from a Primary partition that has been made Active. You wont have that on the second physical drive and even if you did, XP is not currently set up to boot like that because you've installed it for dual-boot.

If you did want to go to XP-only, the simplest method is to reconfigure your partitions and reinstall XP. You could move the partition around using Ghost or Drive Image and then make the necessary changes to a file called boot.ini (which is the boot loader menu you see on loadup), but it's not guaranteed to work and can cause much aggro.

I run a 98/2000 dual boot on my main machine and I tried once to move 2000 to another partition. I never did get it to work. 2000 would get so far through the boot process then endlessly cycle itself.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

...don't just take my word for it though. AnandTech have a good FAQ page about this very subject:
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=109

 

[DerrickRemmert]

It's simply a case of using FDISK to create the whole second physical drive as an Extended DOS partition. Then within that, create a Logical drive. The one partition on drive 1 will be C: and the new one on the second HD will be D:

I'm pretty green when it comes to computers. What is FDISK? I'm not sure what a logical drive is either or how to create it.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

FDISK is a DOS program that allows you set up disk partitions.

Disk partitions fall into three types: Primary DOS, Extended DOS and Logical.

Primary DOS should be the first partition on the drive that you're intending to boot from. It will also need to be made active. You can have another three Primary partitions on a single HD but there's not much point.

Extended DOS should cover the remainder of the drive after the Primary DOS has been created.

Logical drives are created within the Extended DOS partition and become the other 'drives' that Windows sees after the Primary.

So for example, you could have something like:

Primary DOS ( C: )
Extended DOS
..then within that...
Logical ( D: )
Logical ( E: )