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OS Compatibility


Torchizard

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So I am assuming that this boot manager would also work with DOS.

Yes. But DOS 6.22 would have to be confined to the first 8GB of the First Hard Drive.

If you have Data Partitions you want to access from DOS 6.22, they also must be placed in the first 8GB. It would be easier if you put these in the small Hard Drive you mentioned.

Does the 98 HDD limit involve drives over 137GB or just single partitions?

The limit is on the actual location of Data so it is not related to individual Partition sizes. Patches are available to eliminate this limit.

And also, if I were to have a PCI SATA\IDE expansion card in my PC, with one set of HDDs on RAID 1, would that cause any problems in DOS or 98 (I'm guessing that XP would be new enough to not have any problems)

That would depend upon the RAID Drivers available for 98 and XP. The 8GB and 137GB limits would still apply.
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It is not necessary to use separate Hard Drives for each OS. There are various Multi-Boot options.

I'm using separate Hard Drives because they're rather old so if one of them were to fail, it would just take down one OS instead of all three.

This is why I use extra hard drives for my desktop and caddies for my laptops. At least this way, you don't lose everything at once even if you do have backups.

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So I am assuming that this boot manager would also work with DOS.

Yes. But DOS 6.22 would have to be confined to the first 8GB of the First Hard Drive.

If you have Data Partitions you want to access from DOS 6.22, they also must be placed in the first 8GB. It would be easier if you put these in the small Hard Drive you mentioned.

On one of your previous posts, you said that your boot manager supports OSes on a singe HDD so can it work over multiple HDDs or is it designed only for one.

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So I am assuming that this boot manager would also work with DOS.

Yes. But DOS 6.22 would have to be confined to the first 8GB of the First Hard Drive.

If you have Data Partitions you want to access from DOS 6.22, they also must be placed in the first 8GB. It would be easier if you put these in the small Hard Drive you mentioned.

On one of your previous posts, you said that your boot manager supports OSes on a singe HDD so can it work over multiple HDDs or is it designed only for one.
The OSes C:\ Partition have to be on the First Physical Disk, so they are all in one HDD. You can setup Profiles on the other HDDs so that you can choose what is visible to the selected OS.

There is a Demo Package with Documentation available.

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The OSes C:\ Partition have to be on the First Physical Disk, so they are all in one HDD. You can setup Profiles on the other HDDs so that you can choose what is visible to the selected OS.

There is a Demo Package with Documentation available.

There is one more issue that comes to mind. I have read on the MS website that I should install the OSes in the order of DOS, 98, XP but every time that I went through the installation process either on a VM or real PC, I never saw a way to choose the partition like the XP install lets you. So it could possibly decide to install it over the DOS partition that would have been installed earlier. So is there anything such as maybe command line arguments that could let me choose the partition that it would install to?

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When using RFDISK, you choose which Boot Partition is visible. The Installer will not see the other Boot Installed Partition(s) unless you enable it to.

Since XP in particular rewrites the MBR, I would install it first. Then Install the Multi-Boot Profile MBR, then Windows 98, and finally DOS.

Edited by rloew
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When using RFDISK, you choose which Boot Partition is visible. The Installer will not see the other Boot Installed Partition(s) unless you enable it to.

Since XP in particular rewrites the MBR, I would install it first. Then Install the Multi-Boot Profile MBR, then Windows 98, and finally DOS.

Offtopic: Even though I'm considered rather computer-abled for my age, my brain BSOD'd while reading the documentation for RFDISK :)

So with the information that I've gathered from your post and the docs, I'm lead to understand that RFDISK can 'hide' partitions so that OSes can't see them. Is that true?

Edited by Torchizard
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When using RFDISK, you choose which Boot Partition is visible. The Installer will not see the other Boot Installed Partition(s) unless you enable it to.

Since XP in particular rewrites the MBR, I would install it first. Then Install the Multi-Boot Profile MBR, then Windows 98, and finally DOS.

Offtopic: Even though I'm considered rather computer-abled for my age, my brain BSOD'd while reading the documentation for RFDISK :)

So with the information that I've gathered from your post and the docs, I'm lead to understand that RFDISK can 'hide' partitions so that OSes can't see them. Is that true?

Yes.

It also reorders them so OSes such as XP won't get confused if you add new stuff.

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On one of your previous posts, you said that your boot manager supports OSes on a singe HDD so can it work over multiple HDDs or is it designed only for one.

The OSes C:\ Partition have to be on the First Physical Disk, so they are all in one HDD. You can setup Profiles on the other HDDs so that you can choose what is visible to the selected OS.

Well, for the record there are several freeware bootmanagers capable of hiding partitions (and a few capable of exchanging disks if needed).

In particular, GRUB4DOS is a *very* versatile freeware bootmanager, which is capable of booting various OSes, each from a different HDD by design, without any need for hiding the other OSes at all. I do just that, and I love GRUB4DOS.

However, with all the existing documentation, GRUB4DOS is not exactly well documented, and may require help from experienced users (like jaclaz, BTW), experimentation and patience to attain the sought results.

OTOH, RFDISK is fully featured, better documented and comes with RLoew's superb, patient and detailed support.

In both cases you'll be well served, and each has its advantages, but I think you should consider at least GRUB4DOS, too, as an alternative solution to your problem, before you decide.

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In both cases you'll be well served, and each has its advantages, but I think you should consider at least GRUB4DOS, too, as an alternative solution to your problem, before you decide.

But if the issue is "have more OS on the same disk and hide partitions", a much simpler thing can be used, OS-BS/mbldr, as an example, would do nicely:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mbldr/files/

As a matter of fact, if the scope is to have on a "same" disk:

  1. a DOS 6.22
  2. a DOS 7.x+Win9x
  3. any number of NT based systems

it is perfectly achievable through the "standard" MS tools and without any particular "hiding".

Having multiple disks introduces the need to change disk order for some OS, and the "need" of a "plain" DOS 7.x separated from a DOS 7.x+Win9x introduces a further complication.

grub4dos can surely solve all of these, but it is may be overkill for these, these issues were "common" in the good ol' times and there are good ol' tools capable of solving them.

I will repeat how nowadays it makes much more sense (it is easier, more practical, etc.) to have DOS (any version) inside disk images.

jaclaz

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When using RFDISK, you choose which Boot Partition is visible. The Installer will not see the other Boot Installed Partition(s) unless you enable it to.

Since XP in particular rewrites the MBR, I would install it first. Then Install the Multi-Boot Profile MBR, then Windows 98, and finally DOS.

Offtopic: Even though I'm considered rather computer-abled for my age, my brain BSOD'd while reading the documentation for RFDISK :)

So with the information that I've gathered from your post and the docs, I'm lead to understand that RFDISK can 'hide' partitions so that OSes can't see them. Is that true?

I do multiboot setups on virtually all of my machines, and I personally use the "GUI" boot mangers System Commander 8 or BootIt NG to manage different operating systems. I do have a copy of RFDISK though, and have done some experimenting with it.

Despite the well intentioned advice given here about GRUB4DOS, I would have to put in a vote against it. If you find RFDISK confusing, then GRUB4DOS will be as well. There are some good things to be said for GRUB4DOS, but I am not a fan of it.

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Let's start with the standard disclaimer: As I said before, I simply *LOVE* GRUB4DOS.

That said, I agree with LoneCrusader, if your brain BSODed with RFDISK, there's risk of burst "brain capacitors" with GRUB4DOS, I don't dispute that.

However, if the idea is to have multiple HDDs and some OSes booting from each of the HDDs (from primary and/or logical partitions) and maybe even some booting from images, perhaps even memory maped ones, then GRUB4DOS is the best there is at what it does (although, differently from Wolverine, what it does sure *IS* pretty!). My point is, on post #1 the OP said:

On 8/29/2013 at 5:50 AM, Torchizard said:

I'd like to install MS-DOS (with Windows 3.11), 98SE and XP on a triple boot on multiple HDDs [...]

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It is not necessary to Hide OS Boot Partitions from each other with RFDISK. You can share 3. The others will have the last Drive Letters.

It is your choice.

Having DOS 7 and Windows 95, 98 or 98SE on the same Partition is easy.

Add the following Line to the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT File:

C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\COMMAND.COM

Your system will boot into DOS 7. Type "EXIT" and Windows 9X will Boot.

If the Documentation seems overwhelming, learn the basic Commands first. These are:

Drive, Add, Remove, Toggle Active, Write and Quit.

With these you can Partition a Disk. Save the Multi-Boot Profiles and remaining Commands for later.

Edited by rloew
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