Help for Dual Booting between win98 and NT4.0 1

[cyberdyne]

Hi all, pls treat this post as URGENT.

I am in somewhat confused situation.

I have a new 20GB hard disk. I want to have a dual booting between win98 and WinNT 4.0 SP-6a.

I have tried as below.

1) I created primary partition of 2047mb 16 bit with
win98 fdisk. This is active partition and drive is C. I
installed first win98 on it.
2) I now installed win NT4.0 on same drive and through NT
setup I created another 16 bit partiton of 2 gb to keep
my data.
3) Now when i go for remaining space in extended
partition it creates partition in 16 bit only and size
is also 3 gb approx. I am much confused. Won't I be able
to use my remainig 12 gb space if i have all 16 bit
partiotion?
4) Is is possible to have win98 on FAT32 logical partiotion
and even then boot from there ? and have WINNT on fat 16
drive say C ? but here I then have only 2 b of space for
WINNT, ORACLE and Visual studio which i want minimum.
Also there will be some of y data. Is there any way by
which I can increase my NT space ? I feel NTFS
partition is very bad. I lost my whole NT server few days back. and i had 10 gb of hdd then.

I dont want to loose my remaining huge amount of hard disk as my data will be large. I want a full access between all the drives. Is it possible with any kind of (16bit or 32 bit) partition ?


Is there any third party softwares available by virtue of which i can manage my partitions well and access data between all drives ?


Please help asap

Thanks

Apoorva Gala

 

[french01]

G'Day,

There are 2 issues here.

1. Dual boot win9x/WinNT.

To ensure that all your applications function in both systems, you will find it mandatory to install each OS to it's own volume. They will only co-exist happily until you start installing anything useful,... like an application.

While the two systems have unique system directories, thus making it possible for them to remain separate on the same volume, they share the "Program Files" directory which can have "unexpected" effects when using say WinNT when an application was installed in Win9x.

2. How to partition the available space?

FAT16 partitions are the only "common" file system that would be visable from both systems. The 2Gb max for a FAT16 partition is going to be your limiting factor here.

As a duel boot situation, you are going to be required to re-install all applications on both systems that you wish to be "common" to both systems. There is no great advantage in having the "system partition" from one being visable from the other.

Because you are going to have a separate partition for each system, I would suggest that you use the native file system from each OS for it's system drive and reserve a partition in the common format for a "shared data" only partition.

eg.
Fat32 = 7Gb - Win9x system partition
NTFS = 7Gb - WinNT system partition
Fat16 = 2Gb (sorry max for this format)

Under this senario both systems would fail to recognise the native file of the other OS and report only the following.

Under Win9x boot
C:\ = Fat32
D:\ = Fat16

Under WinNT boot
C:\ = NTFS
D:\ = Fat16

You store only your own generated data in the D:\ drive so that it is available from both systems.

Your alternative?

The WinNT5 OS (Windows 2000) now recognises the FAT32 file system, and would enable you to reach your stated goal of large partitions visable from all systems. (NOTE, your would still be advised to separate the 2 systems onto separate partitions, even if they are both FAT32)

Hope it helps
Hugh

 

[cyberdyne]

ty hugh,

can u tell me more about what partition should i make to utilize more and more space. Also on which drive should i install winnt on 'C' ( Primary ) or on 'D' ( Extended ) ?
and same for win98.

Also which os should be installed first ?

Thanks

with regards

Apoorva

 

[cyberdyne]

Hello there !

I did it.
What I have done is I have created a 2047 MB c drive FAT 16 partition. Installed Win98 on it and then NT 4.0 on it. Then Created Extendede partition. Then a FAT 16 Logical partition of 2047 MB D drive. Then dividedremaining space of approx 15 GB in to two FAT 32 logocal drives viz. E and F. Now I can boot from NT as well as Win98.

I can access all four drives when I boot from Win98 and only FAT 16 drives i.e. C and D when I boot from NT.

I Now wonder what about application such as MS Office say for example. Do I have to install it twice or it will be shared between NT and 98 ( I doubt second option will work.)
Please guide.

Also is there a way through which I can access my FAT 32 drives from NT ? May be through some 3rd party software. If yes Pls suggest.

Thanks Apoorva

 

[swinger]

Try using Partition Magic.

 

[french01]

Apoorva,

I suspect that the configuration you have created will fail.

To ensure a "happy" dual boot senario, you MUST ensure that the Win9x and WinNT operating systems are installed to completely different partitions. Installing them to the same partition will appear to initially work but when you start installing applications, things WILL go seriously wrong.

As previously, I suggest you have 3 partitions.

1) starting with a blank disk, create a Primary DOS Partition = Fat32 - this will only be visable in Win9x and display as C:\ Make the partition as large as you reasonably expect the Win9x system needs to expand to. Leave the rest of the disk unpartitioned. Onto this C:\ drive install Win9x as the first step.

2) Now install WinNT. Preferably booting from the WinNT CDROM if your CMOS is capable of it. During installation, choose to partition some of the unpartitioned space as NTFS and install the WinNT system to this NTFS partition. Leave as much unpartitioned space as required for the 3rd partition which will be formatted in a common file system to both systems.

After the system intallations, when you boot to WinNT, this system will fail to recognise the Fat32 partition and ignore it, therefore the NTFS partition will report it'self as C:\ Likewise if you boot to the Win9x system, the NTFS partition will be unrecognised and ignored. No matter which system you boot to, only one of these partitions will be visable and report itself to be the C:\ drive.

3) Finally partition the remaining space on the drive as Fat16. This partition will be visable from both systems and hold the "common data" that you wish to share between systems. This partition will report itslef to be the D;\ drive in both systems. You cannot get around the 2Gb limitation on this partition.

4) Install your applications to the appropriate operating systems. Any applications that need to be present on both systems will need to be installed twice. (once on each system) but you will be able to configure the office applications on both systems to a default to a save location on the shared, common, "D:/" drive.

I am not aware of any 3rd part Util that views Fat32 from an NT4 platform (but then I have not gone looking for one either)

If you must have:

1. Dual Boot
2. Large volumes
3. Both systems recognising all partitions on the entire drive.

Then upgrade to NT5 which is capable of working with Fat32 as the common file structure. But be aware that you will still need a separate volume per system.

 

[cyberdyne]

Dear Hugh,

You have put me in "Thinking Again " status. Till now I have installed MS Visual Studio and oracle 8.0 and crystal report only on NT server and nothing on win98. I was also thinking of the same that if i hv to install some application where do i do it and it shall conflict my system. Well hard work again for me. I will change my setting as per your instaructions.

In your last reply only i understood what you were telling me in yr previous reply.

But R u sure this is a safe way ? because i hv was lucky that i was able to save my data 100% when my NT crashed about 10 days back, but i amy not be lucky always.

So pls reply to my this query.

Thanks alot for yr support and advice.

with Regards N respect

Apoorva
my email address: cyberdyne@softhome.net

 

[cyberdyne]

hi hugh!

This is Apoorva. Thanks for yr reply. I followed what you were trying to say as there may be probs in future with applications, and i agree with that. Now I tried the solution that you have given.

I did as follows.

I first created primary partition of 32bit size =4 gb.
Installed win98 on it.

Then booted from my NT 4.0 cd. Created a partition of 5 gb and formated in NTFS from within NT setup. Setup mentioned me that it will change active partition temporarily to enable setup to boot in to NT . Now it asked to remove any cd and floppies from respective drives. I did the same. When computer was rebooted it did not boot from hard disk. last message was booting from cdrom failed ( as i removed cd from disk). If i keep cd in drive it starts setup from begning. I tried a lot was unable to do any thing further.

Then i booted from my 98 floppy and run fdisk. I saw active partition was of nt 16 bit. But my NT partition and win98 partition were primary partition. i dont know what to do further.

whether to make an extended partition and then create an NTFS partition or whatever. I am confused.

If you can help me it will be of great help.

Thanks

Apoorva

 

[jaeddy]

The problem is that NT does not support FAT32. The way around this is to create a primary DOS partition of say 100MB and format it as FAT16 (you can go as High as 350MB if you want). Create a second partition for Win98 (this will be FAT32), a third partition for NT (NTFS), then a final partition for shared data which you would format as FAT16.

When you boot that small first partition will be drive C no matter which OS you boot to. Win98 will see the C partition, its own partition and the shared data partition. NT will see the C partition, its own partition and the shared data partition; however, you will also see the Win98 partition listed as an unknow file system. Just ignore it.

Hope this helps

 

[pbxman]

Apoorva/Cyberdyne...what you did wrong was when running FDisk - you said "Yes" to the question "Do you wish to enable large hard drive support". What answering "Yes" does is create a FAT32 Partition. Answering "No" creates a FAT16 Partition.

Many people are unaware of this, and as a result - NT could not read the boot.ini created from your 1st Win98 install because the boot.ini resided on a FAT32 partition (which NT cannot read).

Start over. Wipe all your partitions and drives, and boot to your 98 startup floppy, run FDISK - but answer "no" to enable large disk support, install 98, then install NT. All of your problems will go away and it'll even auto-create a dual boot menu for you! I currently have a Quad-boot system, and BOY - that one was tough! But i remember the "early dual-boot days" myself when I just could not get 98/NT to work right..and now Im a multi-boot master! Follow my advice, and you wont have any problems whatsoever. It's VERY easy.
Kudos.

 

[cyberdyne]

Yep ! I did that and have finally got dual booting umm say a week back. N e way thanks for response. I hv followd microsoft knowledge procedure for dual booting between win98 and nt4 and it works fine. no probs.

Only thing which i need now is a way may be a tool or utility with which i can access my NTFS partition through win98 and vice-a-versa. I know this is difficult job but just in case if some one knows that would be of great help to all around the world.

Apoorva

 

[pbxman]

It's not directly supported by either OS - or free...but here's a link that'll get ya what you want.

http://www.winternals.com/products/fct/index.shtml

I wouldn't recommend using programs like these just because of the fact that you need special software just to read the partitions, and in the case of disaster recovery - you dont want to depend on 3rd party software just to be able to do work. If you want compatibility - you should really reinstall NT as FAT16..then you wont have any problems, but you'll lose the security features in NT. Also - the reason you setup a dual boot in the first place is to use each operating system separately from the other.
Just my opinion - but it's better than you cant read between the partitions!
Later

 

[Guest_imported]

what i did is this :
made three partition with dos6.22 fat16 of 2 gb each and i insatll win98 in one partition and winnt on other then all remaining sapace i.e. 16 gb i partition and format win 2000 professional
so , now i can use my win98 with third partion 2gb and and in win nt i can have both 16 gb and 2 gb also.