Big boot

[KillerDragon]

Hello one and all. I am needing some help here. I have an old laptop here that I want to install more than two OSs onto it for the heck of it. hehe. the OSs I want on it are DOS/win 3.11, Win 95, Win 98, Win NT 3.0 and win 2000. If anyone can help me I would love it.

[dencorso]

Grub4DOS

[jaclaz]

Hello one and all. I am needing some help here. I have an old laptop here that I want to install more than two OSs onto it for the heck of it. hehe. the OSs I want on it are DOS/win 3.11, Win 95, Win 98, Win NT 3.0 and win 2000. If anyone can help me I would love it.

There are some issues that need to be resolved, both given answers are either "vague" or downright "wrong" (no offence intended ).

Win NT 3.0 does NOT exist AFAICR, you probably mean either 3.5 or 3.51 (or something else).

In any case NT up to version 4.0 could read FAT16 and NTFS (and NOT FAT32), and BTW, unless a Service Pack - if I recall correctly SP3 - is installed the NT 4.0 NTFS WILL NOT be compatible with Windows 2000 NTFS..

Windows 3.11 (please read as DOS 6.x) can ONLY access FAT16.

Windows 95 and Windows 98 can read ONLY FAT16 and FAT32 (and NOT any version of NTFS).

DOS (*any* DOS) need to start from first disk, actve primary partition.

Windows NT and 2K can be installed normally on a logical volume inside extended.

Windows 95 and Windows 98 cannot "normally" (there are tricks/workaround though).

The biggest issues are between the different versions of Win9x and having various DOSes versions (6.22/7.0/7.1), the NT systems are not an issue if not for the filesystems used/needed.

Maybe you could choose to have only one between 95 and 98, this would greatly easen the chore, and use FAT16 for all partitons (if the idea is to have one system "see the other").

jaclaz

[dencorso]

Grub4DOS

There are some issues that need to be resolved, both given answers are either "vague" or downright "wrong" (no offence intended ).

Well, I consider my answer qualifies for the "vague" one. So, with all due respect, where is the "wrong" answer hiding, since there are just three posts in this thread, of which one is the original question (hence not an answer), the other is my "vague" one and the last is yours, which, of course, cannot be part of the count. And mine cannot be "wrong" since it's "vague" and and just one entity, which prevents it ontologically from being both parts of "both"...

I confess I'm flabbergasted.

[rloew]

Grub4DOS

There are some issues that need to be resolved, both given answers are either "vague" or downright "wrong" (no offence intended ).

Well, I consider my answer qualifies for the "vague" one. So, with all due respect, where is the "wrong" answer hiding, since there are just three posts in this thread, of which one is the original question (hence not an answer), the other is my "vague" one and the last is yours, which, of course, cannot be part of the count. And mine cannot be "wrong" since it's "vague" and and just one entity, which prevents it ontologically from being both parts of "both"...

I confess I'm flabbergasted.

He did say vague OR wrong, not one vague and one wrong, so that part is OK.

But he should have waited until I suggested RFDISK before using "both" in a sentence.

[jumper]

I'm not a multi-booter, but I believe Win 3.11, 95, and 98 can all coexist if installed to different folders/drives. Then one can boot to DOS and manually (or from a simple batch file menu) invoke the desired OS.

If the laptop can boot from USB, multiple external drives (HDD, ZIP, or flash) may be the answer.

If the laptop can network boot, ...well, that's over my head!

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both given answers

Jaclaz' post was originally #4--there were already two replies. I recall searching the original post #3 for the "wrong" part.

[rloew]

I'm not a multi-booter, but I believe Win 3.11, 95, and 98 can all coexist if installed to different folders/drives. Then one can boot to DOS and manually (or from a simple batch file menu) invoke the desired OS.

Different drives definitely. Different folders on the same drive would be a problem for 95 and 98. They both expect the same "Program File" folder. At least one would have to be modded to use an alternative.

[dencorso]

both given answers

Jaclaz' post was originally #4--there were already two replies. I recall searching the original post #3 for the "wrong" part.

Mistery solved!

It was a spam post, which was deleted!

Thanks for the info. You do rock!