Ingenious idea!?

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CASTLECASCADE

New Member
I guess only an ingenious idea could help me get what I want. I thought of (and tried out) numerous methods which I could venture up in my head...and NONE helped.

Hope one of you can help me out.

This is what I want:

I want to dualboot my P4 (has 2 hard disks, 2nd of which I use ONLY for saving video/audio files) with 98 and XP. So both O/S should go in to the 1st hard disk.

Now this is how I want the partitions drive letters to be. I want the 98 to be finally in PARTITION "X". I want the XP to be in PARTITION "C". Other than these, I would want to create two extra partitions too in the 1st hard disk with names "D" and "E".

Though I tinkered with many things (including FDISK, Partition Magic, Computer Management Snap-in and Modular Devices path in the regedit.exe), I still could not get what I wanted.

I am ready to start from scratch with absolutely nothing on my hard disk. I have all the o/s cd's and software needed. Just need to find a solution...no matter how much time and work it takes. I mean I can install, format, install again, create/delete/rename partitions etc etc.....i don't mind, BUT PLEASE DO HELP ME GET THE ABOVE AT THE END !!!


(I will use my 98 only for playing 1 or 2 games.....and i would really want it to use the Drive letter X (the 98 partition, i mean). And I really want the XP to be in the C partition, which is the o/s I will use 99% of the time).

Thanks so much guyz.
 
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CASTLECASCADE

New Member
forgot to mention.........

I also tried changing the active/primary partitions and copied to the boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com files to different partitions. That didn't help either (maybe I didn't do it correctly.........or maybe that is not what I am supposed to do.................................................................you tell me!)

;)
 
tlarkin

tlarkin

VIP Member
why don't you just run windows xp period, then download the free version of virtual PC from MS, then run windows 98 as a virtual machine? 98 has a lot less of support these days, and a virtual machine would be ideal in my mind.
 
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CASTLECASCADE

New Member
Hey................THANK YOU!

I have heard of that thing....virtual machine. I am gonna find out what that is and see if it works for me.

Will update my results here. Meanwhile, anyone else.........please feel free to add any comments.

(even if virtual machine WORKS, I am still CURIOUS to know if it would have worked without virtual machine..............since I used up about 12 hours trying this) :D
 
kof2000

kof2000

New Member
use bcdedit, i had 2k,xp,98,vista,osx,ubuntu in one menu to choose from :D just point them to your drives.
 
H

heyman421

banned
virtual machine is the way to go

then you don't have any downtime while messing with inferior o/s :) because your background apps can still continue to work the whole time.
 
kof2000

kof2000

New Member
we dont know his system specs. he may not have enough RAM to run all those.
you can't game like you would in a virtual machine like you would in a normal os.
 
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computermaineack

New Member
If you do still want to partition your drives what you should do is go ahead and install XP on your harddrive, letting it format in the process. Then, go into Computer Management and change the partitions.

Although I would agree that a virtual machine is probably the best option...it consumes much less harddrive space and is ideal for your situation.
 
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CASTLECASCADE

New Member
THANKS to each of you for your input.

Going with the majority, I installed Virtual PC 2007.

After going through the initial setting by allotting RAM (128) and Virtual Disk Space (4gb), I made the ".vmc" and ".vhd" files for WINDOWS 98.

I thought the 98 would be installed to that ".vhd" file (isn't that supposed to be a virtual hard disk). BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO INSTALL 98 using Virtual PC.

It asks for cd.....I inserted it and then it says that there is NO FAT32 partition in my hard disk (which is true since I only have NTFS partitions). But after allotting 4gb of virtual space, do I still have to create another FAT32 partition to install 98??

How does the the whole "installation of 98 using Virtual PC" thingy work ??

Also what do they mean by "Virtual Machine additions".

Please help guyz.................thank youuuu
 
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CASTLECASCADE

New Member
Also........

again, I have XP installed in my hard disk and am trying to install 98 using the Virtual PC. My Virtual PC is the 2007 edition.

Umm......i have 1.5gb of RAM in total. The CPU is P4 3.0 Ghz.

Thanks.
 
tlarkin

tlarkin

VIP Member
CASTLECASCADE said:
Also........

again, I have XP installed in my hard disk and am trying to install 98 using the Virtual PC. My Virtual PC is the 2007 edition.

Umm......i have 1.5gb of RAM in total. The CPU is P4 3.0 Ghz.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

thats more than enough hardware to run virtual machines
 
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CASTLECASCADE

New Member
Thanks.

I am still looking for an answer as to the installation of WINDOWS 98 on the virtual drive I created.

Would help very much if someone answers my penultimate post (not incl. this).

Thankyou.
 
Impulse666

Impulse666

New Member
well going back to your original idea because i have no exp with virtual pc:

pop your xp installation disc in and boot from it, then delete all partitions on your OS HDD, and partition one to FAT32 (98), one to NTFS (xp), and the other two as you wish (D and E). dont worry about the names at the moment, as you can rename them in xp.

install xp to the NTFS partition of your choice...

then in xp right click my computer, manage, click disk management, and there you can view your partitions and all HDDs, and rename partitions as you please.

then reboot with your 98 install disk and install on the FAT32 partition you made earlier.

from now on when you start up your computer after POST you will see the option of which OS to boot form.
 
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CASTLECASCADE

New Member
From what I understand....

First of all, Disk Management won't let me change the drive letter of the xp or 98 partition.

Second.......I cannot/am not supposed to install 98 AFTER installing XP since 98 will then replace some of the xp files (boot files or something).

:confused::confused::confused:
 
tlarkin

tlarkin

VIP Member
CASTLECASCADE said:
From what I understand....

First of all, Disk Management won't let me change the drive letter of the xp or 98 partition.

Second.......I cannot/am not supposed to install 98 AFTER installing XP since 98 will then replace some of the xp files (boot files or something).

:confused::confused::confused:
Click to expand...

You can't modify a system or boot volume in disk management

also running windows 98 is dumb, its no longer supported and you may have support issues with drivers and what not with newer hardware. Virtual machines are the way to go, and then you don't have to mess with partitioning your HD with older out of date file systems like FAT32
 
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CASTLECASCADE

New Member
Still no one explains HOW TO install 98 using the virtual pc (as I asked in my previous posts).....hmm......maybe it is absurdly simple and prbly I need to look at the program again.

In any case........I might have find my answer:

hxxp://www.petri.co.il/install_windows_98_after_windows_xp.htm

Haven't tried it yet.......but will. I surely don't mind playing around with my computer.
 
Draco Malfoy

Draco Malfoy

New Member
No. When it creates the files, it just creates an empty pretend hard drive for you. When you install a virtual machine, it doesn't do anything at all to your actual hard drive other than write to the virtual drive file. So you don't have to mess with partitioning your actual hard drive. What you do have to do, however, when running Windows 98 setup is to partition your 'virtual' hard disk. Go ahead and format the whole thing with FAT32 during Windows setup (it won't touch your real hard drive partitioning).
 
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