nic2k5

If that PCMCIA card is bootable, that would definitly solve a few of your problems. To verify, you'll have to put the 6Gb drive back in the laptop, format it with copy system files (make sure command.com is on there). Then take the HD out and see if it will boot. There are two possible reasons why EZBIOS won't work with your drive. One, there has to be at least one Maxtor drive present, is the 80 Gb drive from Maxtor? Two, drive overlays usually require the drive parameters to be set to type 1 in the BIOS. That setting may not be available in your laptop, but you may be able to use another one, check the Overlay manual. There are other overlay programs available, even generic ones; I would start by checking with the drive manufacturer. While you're there, find the manual for it, some 3.5" drives have a jumper to force the drive to 32 Gb, if your drive as that, it could be a last resort option. The DOS version of Ghost works just fine with overlays, as long as you boot the correct way. Use the Z=9 switch when running ghost, that will maximize compression, I typically get close to 50% compression ratio. To get the DOS version, start the Boot Wizzard and select a simple boot disc, no usb and no LAN, you should need only one floppy. Make a second boot floppy with Windows, you only want MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS and Command.com on there. Then, from your Ghost floppy, copy all the files over but those three (edit the autoexec.bat to add Z=9 at the end of the line that runs Ghost), now Ghost will be able to write to FAT32 drives. Put both laptop drives in your desktop, unplug the XP drive and set the 6 Gb drive as master on the primary channel. Get an overlay working on the 80 Gb drive, reboot with the Ghost floppy and do a drive copy, use ghost to partition the 80 Gb drive. You'll only need to format the extra partitions later. Make sure to follow the procedure to boot from floppy with the overlay; you have to wait to be told to put the floppy in. If you can manually set the drive parameters in the laptop BIOS, then just match what was set on the desktop. If you want to be able to use Ghost on the laptop in the future, make an extra FAT32 partition of 10 Gb maybe, name it Backup, copy the Ghost program to it. To run Ghost, start the laptop in safe mode command prompt only switch to the backup partition and run Ghost Z=9. You can simplify this with a batch file in the root of C:. Do a partition dump to file of C: with the backup partition as the target.

There is an Fdisk update available from MS, that remove the 64Gb limitation (I use two 120 Gb un-partitionned drives with 98). No, there isn't, but you don't need to pull the drive either. Just use ghost to do the partitionning. First, boot from a floppy and use Fdisk to delete all partitions, then run Ghost and instead of loading to partition, load to drive. On the screen after you choose the target drive, where you see the size of the drive, if you click the Mb it turns into an entry box where you can type the partition size. After that, a new line will appear for the remainder of the drive, click that number again to create a third partition. Once 98 is running, you can format the partitions. If you run Fdisk and choose option 4, you'll see the NTFS partition reported as an unknown file system. 98's file system treats it as un-partitionned (the same as if you didn't create an extended partition); it's not there. You don't have to give it up, just boot the DOS OS from a floppy. Create a third partition of less than 512 Mb, format it and copy all the DOS files and your programs to it. Then, include A: and any other directories you want in the PATH statement. Keep in mind, it's probable DOS6 would think the only partition it sees is the C: drive even if 98 calls it E:. Another alternative would be to boot from a USB pen drive, that would be more responsive than a floppy and depending on it's size you could do away with a partition on the HD. That's only possible if your laptop BIOS has support for Thumbdrives in DOS and can boot off an ARMD device.

The problem is that you're using DOS6; it's not compatible with FAT32. You could use FAT16 for DOS and Win98, but that's not very efficient and I don't think Win2000 would like that. You can't sys the partition with DOS6 'cause it's too large. Fdisk the drive and re-partition it, this time make the first partition smaller than 512 Mb and make it active (use the win98 Fdisk). Partitions smaller than 512 Mb get formatted in FAT16 (brain fade on my part). Use DOS6 to format /s the C: drive, then you must run the Win98 setup even if you only do a minimal install. This will replace the DOS6 MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS with 98's and rename them to .OLD, then when you use 98's boot menu and choose previous version, you'll have access to DOS6. I haven't installed any OS in a while, but now I think setup won't let you put Windows on a drive other than C:, I need to check it out. There's no problem installing your programs on the D: drive, however. Then the question is will 2000 install to a different drive? You can't ghost your old 98 onto the D: drive, you will have all sorts of problems with file paths and programs not found (your old 98 will be pointing to C:). Even if you make D: the active partition, only one can be active, so DOS won't boot. You can't ghost to C: as it would erase DOS6, change the format to FAT32 and probably not fit anyway. To be able to use the boot managers, you have to run setup on the laptop. Don't forget DOS6 can't see FAT32 and NTFS partitions; Win98 can't see NTFS partitions. If you want access to all your files, use Win2k in FAT32. There are some drivers that allow DOS and 98 to read NTFS and FAT32 with limitations. You could try FreeDOS, it supports FAT32.

There are at least three ways you can do this, the first and obvious one is to use a boot manager. There may be limitations, considering the OS's you want to use, that is, they all require to boot from the first partition of the first drive. I can't say what that might imply as I've never tried it. Here are a couple free managers: Ranish Extended FDISK The second way is using the facilities offered by Ms, basically all you do is install the different OS's in the proper sequence. In your case, start with DOS6, then Win98 and finally Win2k. When booting, the Win2k boot manager would offer to select between 98 or 2000. If you want to start DOS6, you have to choose 98, then hit F8 and choose to boot from the old version OS. One caveat, DOS6 can't handle FAT32. A way around this would be to partition the drive at least in two, the C: drive should be formatted for DOS6 (FAT) and kept as small as possible (<1Gb), then format the next partition in FAT32. Install 98 on the D: drive; if you want you can even put 2000 on a third partition (E: drive) and use NTFS (just remember 98 can't read NTFS natively). I guess this would also apply to using a partition manager. The third and most elegant solution requires a BIOS that support boot drive selection. Recent PC's have this option in the advanced setup, where you can choose the drive letter to boot from. In this case you would just install each OS individually on their own drive, then boot and change the drive in the BIOS or use a menu (depends on the BIOS). I don't think this would work with partition drive letters. Since you want to do this on a laptop, the second option might be the more viable one.