petergrobertson

I have an laptop. It included Windows Vista. There seems to be a hidden partition, and I can boot from a included CD to reinstall Vista. First time I booted it install without CD at all. The CD I inserted is labeled Vista. There is tree of them but I only need one. I think the hidden partition is used to install Vista.

But I also want another operating system on it. Windows 95, 98 or ME. And if possible also Solaris and FreeDOS. But How to make it on different partitions? I will not remove the Vista part, because I have some programs and have used much time making the settings perfect.

Just so you know: The Vista installation deletes whole hard disc.

Jonyboy

You can install linux on the other partition. You could get a live cd and during instillation you can edit and resize the partitions.

petergrobertson

Well, I can partition my hard drive, because I chose to make the Windows Vista partition smaller in the install. I now have an empty FAT32 partition, Vista partition, hidden partition and unformatted space. But how can I install an operating system without destroying the Vista partition and the hidden partition? And how to make an booting menu? Maybe put some boot files to my USB discette and always boot from there? I did install Windows 98 in Virtual PC and copied all files from the virtual hard disc to the now empty FAT32 disk. I booted with a Windows 98 boot discette with an changed MSDOS.SYS (I added BootGUI=0 then typed WIN.COM in prompt) It booted Windows, but most drivers where wrong. Like the touchpad was sometimes working, sometimes not.
I will not install GNU/Linux, but if a bootable GNU/Linux CD can help me it is OK.