Dual Booting The Easy Way

Hello,
I've had a look through the posts, I can't find anything really specific, bit here, bit there, mix and match, sort of thing. I'm running Win XP Home Edition, I have Disk Director Suite 9 and TrueImage 10. I have set up the HD with two partitions C: 27.75 GB and D: 28.14 GB. I'd like to also run Win 98se so I can run some older software. Is there a straightforward easy method to do this? Are there pros and cons of doing things in a certain way.
Thank you.
Peter. www.findmadeleine.com

 

Before going the dual boot route it may be worth checking out the XP compatibitly wizard which you can find in Windows Accessories. This will enble some programs to run as if on an earlier OS.

Xpilot

 

You don't state what your current computer hardware is, but you should know that most newer computers don't support Win98 at all. There are no drivers for the hardware/chipsets. As a result, you can't install Win98 on them (at least not easily).

If your computer is older, there may be Win98 drivers available for it. I would check into this before even considering installing Win98.

Installing Win98 after XP is already installed in not easy and involves either using another hard drive or moving/resizing partitions or other measures to overcome Win98 limitations (and then fixing your XP system). It's much easier to install Win98 first and then install XP or Vista (or any other OS that newer than Win9.

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If you want to proceed, the basic instructions would be the following:
Make a complete backup image of the hard drive before you begin. That way you can restore it and start over if something goes wrong.
Assuming you have XP on the first partition ( C: ) and you want Win98 on ( D: ), you'll have to change things around.
XP will need moved to the D: partition (the 2nd partition). Win98 has to boot from a partition that begins in the first 2GB of hard disk space.
You can use TI to image the 1st partition and then restore it to the 2nd partition.
Using DD, reformat the 1st partition as FAT32 for Win98, then set the Win98 partition as active, then apply the changes.
Boot from the Win98 cd and install it (if it will).
Then boot from the DD cd and install OSS (or install whatever boot manager you plan on using). It should find Win98 and XP and setup the menu.

 

Earth Tribe,

If you think Win98 will run on your computer, I'd do it this way.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm

Each OS is independent. Each boots as C: drive and doesn't see the other OS. Either OS can be removed and the other will still boot.

Another alternative is running Win98 in a Virtual Machine. This will work if Win98 won't run on your hardware.

http://www.goodells.net/virtualpc/index.htm

 

Thanks, thats handy to know, will try it on a couple of programs and let you know how I get on.
Peter.

 

Thanks very much for the expert advice. I have a second hand Sony Vaio PCG-Fx501 laptop, according to the Everest System Diagnostic program this has a North Bridge VIA VT8363(A) Apollo KT133(A) chipset.
Peter.