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How do you create a duel boot drive?

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Cindy1

Technical User
Mar 13, 2002
244
US
Hello Peoples,
I'm trying to create a duel boot drive, one will have 98 and the other XP. I partitioned the drive but now I need to know what to do next. I loaded 98 on the active partition now I need to load XP on the other. Do I change the other one to active and load xp? I would like a menu at startup asking which drive I want to boot to. I think that would be better maybe. Help or suggestions would be great.
Thanx a lot,
Cindy [ponder]
 
With 98 running, put in your XP disk and start installing it. Keep your eye on the options. One thing you have to change is "Upgrade" to "New Install". The other is something like "Let me choose the drive windows instals to during installation" (You'll find this by clicking "advanced" which comes up in the 1st few stages). BOTH of these options come up early in the install (While still running 98 and before copying files).

When it asks if you want to format the WinXP drive (later in the instal)... be sure to leave the drive as "FAT32" because of the particians, etc...

Hope this helps...

Thanks
 
I tried that but it corrupted my himem.sys file and I had to rerun it in the c: drive
 
Strange¿ - Dual boot it actually something XP should create no problems (Same for Win2000 + NT). Sorry that your install got messed up, but my honest advise would be for you to try again because it is just something that really really should work with 98 installed and XP installed afterwards plus I have achieved dual boot loadsa times this way. Perhaps it was a coincidence, and something else corrupted your file?

At what point did you discover that himem.sys became corrupt? After the 1st reboot after running XP setup, it should have booted into the rest of XP's setup, so you wouldn't have even seen that himem.sys wasn't working. You would have had to be booting into 98 to have discovered that???

Well good luck!! I'll keep my eye on this post.
 
Don't worry I won't give up, if there is a way I will find it. When I tried to install windows 98 on the second partition I put it in the d:\windows directory so that later I could run my xp upgrade I don't know if that was it? I will try again today I also have the notes that berton gave me.
thanx,
Keep you posted.
Cindy [ponder]
 
cindy,
be careful, first u have to install windows98 and then xp.

tutmoses,
reinstalling windows 98 in dual boot system (i.e. win98 and xp pervisely working), the boot menu is currpted. give the solution to rectify.

ravee
 
With clean hard drive, boot using win98 boot floppy, use fdisk to create a primary partition as big as you need for win98 (leave enough space for XP). Reboot with same floppy (CD rom support) & win98 install disk in CD drive. Run format C: then run E:\setup, and install win98. Once 98 is installed, run XP install from 98. Choose clean install option & that you choose where to install. When it reboots and gets to bit where you choose, create a new partition using tools provided (FAT32 or NTFS) in spare space on drive. Continue install - at end you should have dual boot machine.

Note: All boot files on C: drive, so if you reformat C:/reinstall 98 you'll loose boot menu to XP. If you use NTFS for XP, you won't be able to see the XP partition from 98 (unless you install something like ntfsdos from If you want both operating systems to be independent (so you can remove/reinstall one without upsetting other) use a third part boot manager (I use boot-us from - free for personal use). You can create an XP boot floppy - which will allow you to boot into XP if anything happens to C: drive where 98 is. Format floppy in XP, copy files ntldr, ntdetect.com & boot.ini from root of C: to it (hidden system files so need to set options accordingly to access).
 
Now I have reinstalled xp on the other partition and when I turn it on it boots to xp. How do I change it so I can choose which operating system I want to boot to at startup? My husband likes 98 and I like xp so I'd like to have it boot into 98 when he turns the computer on. I went to the control panel, system, advanced, startup settings and the only operating system that was in the drop down window was xp. I couldn't change it. On the bright side we are making progress.
Thanx for the help so far you guys have been great!
Cindy [ponder]
 
Cindy,

To get dual boot using XP's boot menu, you MUST install win98 first, then XP second. I prefer to use a third party boot manager (boot-us, mentioned in my earlier post) because it allows independence of install/removal of operating systems.
 
I did loaded 98 on the 1st partition named 98 then I loaded 98 then xp on my second partition named xp. So I think I did it right but I think I will try boot-us. Is it too late to install that Wolluf?
Cindy
 
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