Multi-OS Installation Procedure

Hi,
Can someone describe step by step how to do multi-OS installation please? For example MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 98, Windows XP and Vista.
MS Support page says that the installation order should be from oldest to newest. Is it necessary with OSS?
Thanks a lot...

Burak Alper

 

The order is not strictly necessary when using OSS (or any other boot manager) but you still have to follow certain rules. I would suggest reading the DD manual (I think it's chapter 7 that deals with OSS) and also the Appendix entries that deal with the different OS and partition requirements.

MS-DOS would need to be installed at the beginning the the hard drive in a (probably) small partition formatted as FAT16. Win98 would need to be installed in the next partition formatted as FAT32 and should be located in the first 2GB of the hard disk. XP and Vista can be in NTFS partitions after that.

Is this a newer computer? If it is, I wouldn't recommend installing Win98 as most newer computers have no drivers for Win98 and you may not even be able to install it. DOS will probably install, but what are you using it for?

Depending on your requirements and the computer system, you may be better off running DOS and Windows 98 in a Virtual Machine instead of multi-booting with them.

Is anything currently installed on the computer? (XP or Vista, for example.)

Some computer specifications (brand, model, cpu, ram, etc.) and some more specific information on what you are trying to achieve (and why) will help determine the best way to proceed.

 

Thanks MudCrab for fast reply.
I have a game archive that I want to play time to time. Compatibility mode in XP mostly does not work. Virtualization is next to useless because all virtualization porgrams emulate certain hardware (such as Virtual PC 2007 emulates only pity S3 graphics card) This is unacceptable for most of the games.

For now, i have divided my physical disk to partitions of 2GB for FAT16, 30GB for FAT32, 110GB for NTFS. I have also another physical drive which I want to setup Vista.

Currently, I have only XP installed in my computer. It is in the third partition.

I have Pentium D CPU, 2GB RAM, 2 x Nvidia 7800 in SLI configuration, and 2 SATA drives (150GB and 120GB). I have also 2 USB drives, one 200GB, the other 1TB which is RAID 1. I use external disks for data. Computer is custom built by myself and therefore my Windows licences are retail. DDS version is 10.

I am really confused with all the threads regarding OS incompatibilities. Everybody has some sort of problems regarding Vista. And I did not see any other tread regarding to installation of 5 or 6 different OS with Vista, so I thought it would be best for somebody tell me and other people about potential risks of doing it.

Thanks a lot...

 

Before going further and since you want to play games, the first thing I would check is if you could get drivers for your video cards for Windows 98. nVidia doesn't list any 7 series drivers for Windows 98 (and since you have an SLI setup I don't know if "basic" drivers would work or not). The last ones for 98 are the 6 series. If you can't get drivers for your video cards then you won't get any DirectX acceleration in Windows 98 and your games probably won't work any better than under a VM since they'd be using VESA mode and not even the atiquated (but somewhat accelerated) S3 drivers.

If you have a spare drive you can use (perhaps the drive you're planning on putting Vista on later?), then I would suggest connecting it by itself (disconnect all other internal drives and the external drives) and seeing if you can even install Windows 98 on your computer. If you can install Windows 98 and it works properly then it will probably be worth trying to setup a multi-boot system for it. One of the biggest problems people have with trying to install Windows 98 on newer systems is that most of the newer chipsets don't support Windows 98 and there are no drivers available. Even if you get the 98 installed it will most likely be forced into "compatibility" mode and you may not have USB, network, sound, etc. Check if Windows 98 motherboard/chipset drivers are availible for your motherboard.

For DOS based games have you tried DOSBox? I've used it before and it runs most old DOS games pretty well if you have a decently fast system (which you do).

 

You' right. I just checked Nvidia site. I have to work on this and find a solution. Otherwise, the only option left is to keep my old computer.

DosBOX is great. I use it mainly. But it is not 100% and DOS partition takes only 2GB. Maybe somebody makes a Win98 emulator in the future