Simviation Forums

I have been reliably/un-reliably informed that it is possible to have two operating systems installed on the same computer, and swap between them as necessary.
I have Win '98SE installed at present, which is fine so far, and runs all my lovely, very old, (including DOS) games, and the latest games... ...!
...ButI am told that very soon all software will be written to run on Win XP only, and Win '98SE will be obsolete, (no up-grades).

If both systems are installed on the hard drive(s), how would it be possible to select the desired system to boot-up*...?
(I have two hard drives C 20Gig,  and D 10 Gig).
NOTE: (Running Win XP in "Classic Mode" is not the same as running Win '98SE).... ...!

...interesting... ...!
Would it work...?
Any ideas...?

Cheers all... ...!

Paul.

*Win XP on one HDD, Win '98 SE on the other HDD, and select the HDD boot-up sequence in BIOS at start-up...?

Ok this is how I did it a year or so ago when I felt that I needed two seperate systems (XP and ME)

1. Using Partition magic or something similar make a new partition on the HD that is large enough for XP (2GB+).  This must be a "real" partition and will need to go in front of the 98 partition.  Partiton magic has the required instructions, it will ask if the new partition is intended for an OS, when you say yes it will make sure that you select the correct options.

2.  Do not touch the new partition.

3.  Insert the XP DVD and when it comes up asking where you wish to put the new OS make sure that you place it on the partition that you have created.

4.  Each time you boot up you will be given the choice of systems.

Be warned that there are huge dangers with doing this blah blah blah.

It works fine.

98se has to be the first op sys loaded. (I use the first partition c: ).

Win XP will give the option to use other partitions as the installation drive in the setup..... choose d:

Also, don't choose the UPGRADE option or XP will overwrite your '98 installation. Choose "new installation" and "I want to choose the drive letter of the new installation".

When XP has finished installing, the PC will open with a boot menu to choose your op sys from.

The rest is fairly intuitive, bearing in mind that both op sys's are totally seperate and have nothing to do with each other. However, many programs can be shared without having to make seperate installations on each op sys, simply by shortcutting to them from the other op sys.

I used to do this for system redundancy, ie .... I had a backup system to fix the other one from. But, in reality, I found XP too difficult to restore/repair, a good drive image tool might do the trick there.

I have windows 98se and windows XP on the same partition  they are both on C and I never had any problems, just have to install windows as fresh install under a different folder I have XP installed in the  C:/windows and C:/win98se for the other, but if you cant use c as an NTFS partition as only XP and 2000 can read those files.  

Hi Paul!

Yeah, basically what Smoke and Congo said. Have the XP drive/partition as NTFS and the 98se drive/partition as FAT/FAT32 (anyone help with which one?).

You should probably make sure XP is on the master drive and 98 on the slave (if you are doing it with one OS on each drive).

May I ask how fast your drives are, because installing XP on a 5400 drive will make it unbearably slow. So if your drives are different speeds I recommend you put XP on the faster one

Be warned that there are huge dangers with doing this blah blah blah.

Correct Smoke, but you can do a lot of things to decrease the chance of everything going wrong. Be warned that you could lose everything if the XP installation fails and it requires the drive to be formatted. (This is only if you are installing them on the same drive). So back everything up!

There is also the possibility that you could upgrade to XP, losing 98. Micro$oft has put a Compatibility Mode into XP, which will allow XP to run programs, games etc from 95, 98, 2000 or NT. I have tried this and it does work , contradictory to what a lot of people think.

Also, I doubt software will be written solely for XP. More and more programs will be written for XP, but I am pretty sure they should be able to run on older OSs.

Hope that helped a bit

Jonathan

Hi Paul, "Dual Booting" Works a treat! I've got XP & 98 Happily running along side one-another.  ;D

My single 80gb HD is partitioned into 4 drives, one of them is 25GB NTFS which houses XP, 98  is blissfully unaware of its existance!

I simply select which one at boot up.

XP Benchmarks me 12,000+ 3D Mark2001 "marks", 98 gets a mere 8,500! - In short, XP is very much quicker.

CFS2 stays on '98 as about 20 of my planes don't like XP one bit!

One more thing, if you get more than 512MB for your new XP (which I'd advise to get good performance) be sure to limit RAM under '98 to 512MB!!!

Paul.

Hi all,

Just a quick question: I know that you should install the newer OS last, but I have XP installed currently. Is there any way to install 98 without taking XP off. I have XP on my 120Gb NTFS drive, and a separate 40Gb drive which currently has nothing on it and is FAT32.

Thanks

Jon

Hi Lads...!
Thanks for all your replies... ...!
I have lots of programs on both of my hard drives so I don't want to Format and Partition either of them and loose all my programs.
So...
What are the chances of....

1) Un-installing my Win '98 SE on my main C, (20gig), HDD and replacing it with Win XP instead.
2) Installing my Win '98 SE on the slave HDD, (10gig). HDD.

How would this affect selecting the desired operating system at boot-up...?

Is it worth the trouble of messing about with it at all...or just leave Win '98 SE in place where it is, and forget Win XP altogether....?
LOL...!

Cheers all... ...!

Paul....(getting a headache..)....LOL.... ...!

Paul if you are not formatting any of the partitions I don

Hi Paul!

I think that it is worth the trouble. I have only Windows XP Professional installed becuase I have no programs that require any other operating systems.

Contrary to BR, I recommend NTFS over other drive formats. It sped my computer up and is much more secure. Installing XP on an FAT/FAT32 partition is definitely a no-no in my book.

Also, XP is not happy if there are already programs/documents on the drive that you tell it to install on. It can be done, but it's best if it's installed on a blank drive.

But if you say you have stuff on both drives and don't wish to lose anything, I recommend you leave it well alone. Moving operating systems, adding them and formatting drives will almost certainly lead to a format of drives, and therefore a loss of data.

Jonathan

Hi BR and Jonathan.... ...!
...many, many thanks for your kind replies... ...!
I think I will leave well alone at the moment until the time comes when everything goes totally pear-shaped and I am forced to Format my HDD's and re-install the operating system again from scratch, re-placing Win '98 SE with Win XP....!
..or...
I could revert back to good old-fashioned DOS... ....!
...on second thoughts.... ...!
...NAH... ...!
LOL...!

Thanks again Lads... ...!

Paul.

Hi Paul!

Wise choice mate . DOS I mean ... lol ...

Jonathan

I have windows 95.......installed on my C: drive and XP on my D: drive. No real problems, it just starts up slower since I gotta choose which OS I wanna use, but that's about it.