best way to instal 2 systems ?

[mtbbac]

Hi,

what is best way to instal XP and 98 in the same machine (i used partitionmagic for it but it's very dificulte and I have some errors with it)....any other ideas or programs ??

and are there any others application like bootmagic in partition magic ?

thanks ^^

[j7n]

If you don't have a working system at the moment, you just install both OSes. If you already have WinXP installed and want to keep, it's more complicated. I find it best if both systems ar located on a single FAT32 partition. You will have to use nLite to modify installation path of Windows XP. First install Windows 98 to \WINDOWS and then Windows XP to say \WINNT. WinXP will see that the system contains DOS and will dump the current boot sector to a file called bootsect.dos. Later you can add an entry to boot.ini to use this file for loading Windows 98.

Edited February 8, 2008 by j7n

[mtbbac]

If you don't have a working system at the moment, you just install both OSes. If you already have WinXP installed and want to keep, it's more complicated. I find it best if both systems ar located on a single FAT32 partition. You will have to use nLite to modify installation path of Windows XP. First install Windows 98 to \WINDOWS and then Windows XP to say \WINNT. WinXP will see that the system contains DOS and will dump the current boot sector to a file called bootsect.dos. Later you can add an entry to boot.ini to use this file for loading Windows 98.

I have XP installed and I wanna instal 98

and it's very dificult

[MadFly]

Or alternatively you could just create another partition assuming you have some free space and install '98 on the new partition. If memory servers me correct I have done that a few years back.

[jrf2027]

The simplest method would be to get a new hard drive, create two FAT32 partitions on it, install 98, then install XP. This way, you won't toast your current XP install until you know your new install is working correctly.

The "best" way, IMHO, involves mutiple partitioning and using a Linux installation with GRUB to isolate each OS. It's not for the faint at heart and definitely not for beginners, and you want some Linux experience before diving into it.

I've successfully installed XP, Vista 32-bit, Vista 64-bit, and Ubuntu 7.10 all on the same system, with each Windows installation retaining its independent boot files, and unable to see any other Windows installation. You use GRUB to designate the active partition and hide the others at boot time. For the primer, check out this post from justlinux.com: A Linux way to triple boot itself, XP, and Vista

Of course, I'm sure that there's about 10,000 "best" ways to do this...the truly best way is whatever works best for your particular circumstances.

[Ponch]

I have XP installed and I wanna instal 98

and it's very dificult

What are your disks and partitionning at the moment ?

I use a dos boot disk with Ranish Partition Manager on it and it's a very simple but powerfull tool. I create two primary partitions (+ one extended for data if you plan to reinstall often), and use the last cylinder to make a boot manager. I install both OS on its primary and active partition, reinstall a "standard" MBR after each install and switch the active one at boot if needed through the boot manager. It's neat and easy to understand. I never had an unrecoverable crash due to this. But it implies reading the explanations a minimum.

[j7n]

(1) Assuming your WinXP installation is very important but programs are NOT stored in \Program Files. I'm not sure how to properly move an installed WinXP from \WINDOWS to \WINNT. I would try installing Win98 to something like \WIN98 (possible incompatibilities later since some tools assume \WINDOWS).

1. Backup your system to another place.

2. Wipe the partition.

3. Install Win98.

4. Setup a BIOS password (to halt booting). Run WinXP installer and wait until it reboots the PC. NT boot sector and system files are now written. Do not let the XP setup continue (since we don't need this clean XP).

5. Delete the newly created directories by the XP installer in C: root.

6. Restore your original WinXP directory from the backup. Edit boot.ini so that it has 2 entries, one pointing to WINDOWS, and one to C:\BOOTSECT.DOS

This approach has 2 problems: the \WIN98 directory name and lost \Program Files contents. It is no big deal if software had been installed to another partition such as D. You can also try restoring original \Program Files but I'm not sure if Win98 would be happy with some NT-specific DLLs there. Most likely Win98 will boot Ok though, I think.

(2) It's much easier to install everything clean and organize your folder structure like this:

C:\WINDOWS - Win98

C:\Program Files - contents installed by Win98 and application shared files

C:\WINNT - WinXP

C:\TEMP - common temp dir (instead of deep inside Documents and Settings)

D:\SOMETHING - Applications, maybe addition folders for Games and shared files like Codecs that are installed by the user. Applications may be common to both OSes.

E:\ - Virtual Memory

F:\ [G: H: ...] - User files

N:\ - An NTFS partition (or physical disk) for large files such as when doing video editing.

All partitions except one (or more if you have a monster computer with like 5 hdds) are FAT32 for interoperability. This partition structure enables you to make backup of you operating system and applications without worrying about swap and user files. User files are often large and are better backuped separately. It's not absolutely necessary to have applications on D. Though I find it useful myself. In case C: or D: gets fragmented your user files on other disks won't suffer.

When you install applications you'll have to do it 2 times – for each system once. Except for programs that require NT, you obviously don't need to install the on 98. Some software use INI files in %Windir%. They may provide an option to pass the ini filename as command line parameter, so you can still share their config between both systems. I would also make common Start menus and the Desktop (later less important). This can be done using TweakUI XP by changing special folder locations to "C:\Windows\Start Menu" and so on.

I have installed three systems this way. Takes hellalot of time and drives nuts since you have to do twice the work. But it can be done. This dualboot setup comes useful when you need to fix one of the systems. Just boot into the other one. No need for slow boot CDs most of the time.

Example boot ini for this configuration:

[boot loader]
timeout=6
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows XP SP1" /noguiboot /fastdetect
C:\bootsect.dos="Windows 98SE"

Edited February 9, 2008 by j7n

[Idontwantspam]

I recently wanted to add Windows 2000 to my machine which has an existing xp partition. What I did was I used Gparted to shrink the XP partition, then create a new partition to put Win2K on. You could try that. Gparted is an amazing tool - it's the gnome partitioning tool, and they make a boot disk that you can use, which boots into a minimal linux live cd, where the only thing in the interface is the partitioning tool. Just boot off the disk - there's no need to install it or anything.