running two operating systems on one puter

[stepchild]

I was wondering if it would be possible to run two separate operating systems on one computer. Could I partition my hard drive and have two seperate start ups on boot? Would that be done with the autoexec.bat file, or the config.sys??
Any help or input would be great. Thanks Bill

 

[Mulga]

Bill,
Yes it is quite common to do this. It is ususl to install the older OS first, eg Win98. You may require a boot manager program such as Boot Magic (comes as part of most versions of Partition Magic) or one of the many free ones that can be found on freeware sites. This depends on what the second OS is. Win XP and 2000, also Linux, come with their own boot manager / partitioning utilities so in those cases no 3rd party software is required. If you are doing 2 Win9X installations you will have to partition the hard drive first using fdisk and install a boot manager. After the OS installations have been done the boot manager will then give you a choice of OS to load on startup.

 

[edfair]

Be sure to make the emergency boot disks, both for partition magic (if available for your version) and for boot magic. Installation of some operating systems rewrite the boot, which hijacks the boot manager code, which then needs to be reactivated with the EBD. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

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