mntview64

I checked the update link that said to make this copy legal (geniune) from Microsoft, and the kit to make it legal, costs $149.00. Which they said I have to fill out the pirate software form and send the CD to them, but they would make my copy legal and send me a new CD. This was in a sealed package, but wasn't in a box. This was suppose to be an OEM copy, and had the COA and OEM sticker on the book. The CD had the hologram on it. After I got the pirate warning, I checked the hologram closer and I could see that it was a sticker placed on the CD. Then I checked the Setupp.ini file on the CD, and it had the PID=76487 270 number in the file. If I am not wrong, this is the Corp. version (270) when it should have said OEM instead of the 270. So I have been check the internet stores to see if anyone had a close-out sale for Win XP Pro. that cost less than the $149.00 Micorsoft wants to charge.

Well I guess I spoke to soon. Installing went well and I can duel boot now and my drive letters are fine in win98. But I do have a big problem NOW! I purchased Windows XP Pro w/SP3 from a seller on ebay. After the windows activation, it pops up, this is not a genuine copy, this could be pirvate software. So it looks like I wasted the $70 I paid for this CD. I tried contacting the seller with no response, and now my 45 days to file a complaint with ebay and paypal is to late. I have read about using cracks to get it to activate, but I don't feel safe doing this. I would rather have a genuine copy, so I know all the updates and downloads will work. My question is, when I uninstall this pirvate software, what happens to the duel booting setup. I guess I will have to reformat the partition I installed the pirate OS to, in order to remove it. I believe though, it will leave all the duel-boot files on my C: root. Should I remove those file also? Or when I get a legal copy of XP, and install it, will it just rewrite those files? If I don't remove those files, will I still be able to boot into Win98?

Thank you all for your help and information. This is what I ended up doing. I purchased a new 250gb PATA hard drive. Then I repartationed the G: volume on drive 0 into 5 partations, making drive(0) C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K and my drive (1) L-M-N-O. Then I used xcopy32 to copy from drive(1)L to H, M to I, N to J, and O to K on drive(0). I then removed my old 40gb drive(1) and installed the new 250gb hard drive. I used my XP-cd to partation the new hard drive into 2 partations, the first partation as primary and one logical drive, which made them D: and M: using the NTFS file system. Then installed XP into the D volume on drive(1). Now when I boot into win98 the drive letters are C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K on drive(0)just the way it was with 2 hard drives. Win98 doesn't see drive(1). When I boot into XP the drive letters are C-win98 D-XP-ntfs E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L all FAT32 and M-ntfs. I just renamed the volume label names in XP to show what volume it is in win98. Like C is win98 D is XP,E is 98-D, F is 98-E, G is 98-F, and so on. So far everything is working fine.

The order in which MS-DOS (*) enumerates partitions is : a) First primary partition of each drive, in turn B) All extended partitions of each drive, in turn c) All remaining primary partitions of each drive, in turn Drives that are not recognized are not enumerated. * At least as far back as version 7.0, perhaps even 6.22 (earlier than that, only one primary partition was supported). Assuming NT uses the same rules, what you should do is make that 105G partition a primary partition. Then it will get enumerated last for NT, & ignored for DOS/W9X. So all other partition drive letters will match between the two O/S. BTW, if you get phantom drive enumeration or other LBA problems in W9X, you might want to try my revised patch for V7.10 'IO.SYS' (based on original patch by Steven Saunderson), available at : http://jds.com-t.com/general.html Joe. Thank you JDS (Joe) This sounds interesting to me, but am still a little confused here. If I make my G volume into a primary partition, then install NTFS on it, win98 won't see it, so then win98 will change the drive letters on my second hard drive, because there won't be a G volume on my first hard drive. Then what happens when I boot into XP, where it can see all volumes, to the letter assignment? Do you know if XP has to be installed on a primary partition? I have read XP will run from a logical drive as long as it can install it's drivers in the first primary partition of the hard drive. Another question, what is this V7.10 - IO.sys patch for? I downloaded all the win98 updates from MDGx web site and installed them in order to get my 250gb hard drive to run win98se, and so far everything is working great. This confused me even more. I believe what you said eariler made more sense to me, when you said to repartition my empty G drive into 2 partitions, so hard drive 0 will keep the drive letter G in place and it won't change drive 1 letter asignment. After doing this partition change on drive 0 it would make it C - D - E- F - G - H. and drive 1 would be I - J - k - L. Then install XP and NTFS onto G drive, which would hide it from w98 on Drive 0 making w98 just see it as C-D-E-F-G and in turn change drive 1 drive back to H - I - J - K. I don't understand why making the NTFS partition a primary partition matters, or am I missing something here.