Dual boot Win98SE and Win98SE?

[Lunac]

Anyone know how I could get two versions of Win98SE to work side by side, dual boot and all?

[LLXX]

Put them on two partitions and edit the MBR when you want to switch between them.

[RainyShadow]

You'll need a boot manager. XOSL is very good one (that's what i use) and includes Smart BootManager and Ranish Partition Manager (it's 3in1, LOL). Or you can try some other. I'll explain here how to do it with Ranish.

First get a startup floppy.Get this and extract PART244.EXE to the floppy. Comment out (or remove) HIMEM.SYS line in CONFIG.SYS on the floppy.

Make sure you have two primary partitions on your drive, one for each of your Win98 instalations. Use whatever tool you are familiar with to make these (i preffer Partition Magic). An extended partition would be handy too, you can install there applications (games ) shared between the two 98s.

Boot from the floppy and start PART244.exe. Select the MBR, press Enter and change the settings as shown here:

Then select the first primary partition and set its boot flag ON using B key. Use F2 to save the changes.

Remove the floppy and boot from your Win98 install CD. Install Windows on the C: drive.

After you've finished with the first instalation, boot from the floppy again. Select the first partition (the one you've installed windows on) and hide it using the H key. Select the second primary partition and set it as bootable (B key). Should look similar to this:

Save the settings (F2)

Reboot from the CD and install Windows on C: again.

When finished installing, start from the floppy again. Unhide the hidden partition. Check that the MBR settings are still the same as on the first picture (Windows likes to mess with the MBR). Save, remove the floppy and the CD, reboot.

That's it, you can select which OS to start by pressing the partition number on boot (in this case 1 or 2). Enjoy

[CLASYS]

I use OS/2 Boot Manager, which can be had inside of Partition Magic 3 [3.05 is the last version that supplied it, and 4.01 is the last one that maintained it.]

I routinely have Boot Manager setting up the possibility of two different DOS-based OSes like 98SE. Boot Manager hides one drive C: and unhides the other drive C: when you select either one. [Note: If you install OS/2 itself in a higher-still partition, it can access either drive C:, not simultaneously, but as a consequence of the last time you chose, since the hidden/unhidden is permanent until another drive c: based choice occurs, etc.

The disk layout is:

1 Boot Manager [bootable]

2 One Drive C

3 The other Drive C

4 The extended table to store all of the other drives, OS/2, linux, whatever

A recommendation is to install 98SE in two partitions other than C: That way, they can "see" each others files, useful for maintenance/patching etc.

Using one drive C: for each system means that the contents of BOTH of them is trivial, small, and more importantly STATIC contents. Long-term, there shouldn't be hardly ever an update [possibly an autoexec.bat change, but largely unchanged.]

That way, a backup for the drive C: can fit on a floppy and you can recover the tiny C: partition with impunity. IF virii killed it, just replace it!

An additional advantage: Some virii kill the boot sector and the first few tracks, assuming drive C: is there. If you do it this way, and have actually the boot sector, then boot manager, then a trivial C: and then another trivial C:, then using something like Norton Rescue Disk and trivial images of these three tiny partitions saves your a** every time!

I routinely have a real 98SE system on one "side" of boot manager, meaning it boots off of one of the tiny C: drives. On the other I have an XP system AND another 98SE system each connected to NTLDR and boot.ini. This lesser 98SE is used as a maintenance system for XP which is too demented to be self-sufficient. [And also, even if you could have two XP systems, one to maintain the other, it's arguably not as good as having 98SE to maintain the XP].

The actual system drives them selves are in higher-still partitions in the extended table like F:, G:, H: etc. I tend to use D: as a support drive meaning just install files I could easily backup to a CD-R or two.

When you do it this way, all systems can access each other when needed, and cheap-shot viruses can't kill you, just inconvenience you.

cjl

[Acheron]

I have installed Windows 98 on two partitions. One is a reference installation. If I need it to work I use a modified boot-up diskette to start it.

For the rest I'm using VMWare to test Windows 98 Setup.

[miko]

as many 98SEs as you want

(with desktop shortcuts to each install)

http://www.thpc.info/dual/addawins.html

Edited June 13, 2006 by miko

[Lunac]

I appreciate the assistance. I already accomplished this yesterday. Much easier than I expected. Third party boot manager was the key.