Dual boot with Win98SE

  • Thread starter Thread starter Digitalis
  • Start date Start date
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Digitalis

I installed Vista on a second partition with 98SE and it (Vista) is working
well.

From the boot menu if I choose "Earlier version of Windows" i get an "ntldr
missing" message. Is there any way to get dual booting working? EasyBCD
shows the following info for the boot manager.

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=D:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {50c73d50-e6b3-11da-bc73-d30cdb1ce216}
displayorder {ntldr}
{current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 6

Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {ntldr}
device partition=D:
path \ntldr
description Earlier version of Windows

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {50c73d50-e6b3-11da-bc73-d30cdb1ce216}
nx OptIn
 
copy the ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini files (if there) from the win98
drive to the Vista drive (the one with the Vista boot file) Hidden files
so make sure you have file properties set to see them.
 
John said:
copy the ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini files (if there) from the win98
drive to the Vista drive (the one with the Vista boot file) Hidden files
so make sure you have file properties set to see them.
Click to expand...


Those files do not exist in Win95/98/ME, so
there is no way to copy them!
 
Been a long time. If I remember, Io.sys, Msdos.sys, Config.sys and
Autoexec.bat. Doesn't look like Vista has a way of pointing to the startup
loader, at least thru VistaBootPro.
Leaves either installing a third party boot manager or getting the boot
loader from XP somehow. It does allow for booting 1 copy of win98 from it,
but a third party solution is probably the cleanest. Also could use the
swap at POST time if his BIOS offers that.
 
Vista Boot file has provision for pointing to legacy boot loader ntldr which
uses boot.ini to load the legacy system, so technically you are right, but
it is used to load the legacy system from Vista
 
I installed Vista on a second partition with 98SE and it (Vista) is working
well.

From the boot menu if I choose "Earlier version of Windows" i get an "ntldr
missing" message. Is there any way to get dual booting working?
Click to expand...

Works here. You need to have the BOOTSECT.BAK that the Vista install
should have made, and put Ntldr and Ntdetect (from any NT OS - NT
4/2K/XP) in the boot directory along with it, and make a boot.ini:

05/19/2006 12:55 AM 444,796 bootmgr
07/01/2006 10:40 AM 133 boot.ini
10/03/2004 05:34 PM 47,564 NTDETECT.COM
10/03/2004 05:34 PM 250,032 ntldr
05/11/1998 08:01 PM 222,390 IO.SYS
05/11/1998 08:01 PM 9 MSDOS.SYS
06/29/2006 10:44 PM 512 BOOTSECT.BAK

In your boot.ini, you need something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=C:\bootsect.bak="Win98" /win95dos
[operating systems]
C:\bootsect.bak="Win98" /win95dos

This points the boot manager to the Win98 bootector that Vista
thoughtfully copied to BOOTSECT.BAK. The drive letter is relative to
when the Vista bootloader first sees the drives. Mine says C: because
the bootloader and bootsector are on the first primary partition -
even though once Vista is running that partiton is called D:.

Loren
 
Very nice instructions.

Loren Amelang said:
I installed Vista on a second partition with 98SE and it (Vista) is
working
well.

From the boot menu if I choose "Earlier version of Windows" i get an
"ntldr
missing" message. Is there any way to get dual booting working?
Click to expand...

Works here. You need to have the BOOTSECT.BAK that the Vista install
should have made, and put Ntldr and Ntdetect (from any NT OS - NT
4/2K/XP) in the boot directory along with it, and make a boot.ini:

05/19/2006 12:55 AM 444,796 bootmgr
07/01/2006 10:40 AM 133 boot.ini
10/03/2004 05:34 PM 47,564 NTDETECT.COM
10/03/2004 05:34 PM 250,032 ntldr
05/11/1998 08:01 PM 222,390 IO.SYS
05/11/1998 08:01 PM 9 MSDOS.SYS
06/29/2006 10:44 PM 512 BOOTSECT.BAK

In your boot.ini, you need something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=C:\bootsect.bak="Win98" /win95dos
[operating systems]
C:\bootsect.bak="Win98" /win95dos

This points the boot manager to the Win98 bootector that Vista
thoughtfully copied to BOOTSECT.BAK. The drive letter is relative to
when the Vista bootloader first sees the drives. Mine says C: because
the bootloader and bootsector are on the first primary partition -
even though once Vista is running that partiton is called D:.

Loren
Click to expand...
 
There is another issue here that is less obvious. This scenario cannot
last. Win98 cannot correctly address more than 512MB. Such limited
hardware is not suitable for Vista, IMHO. It can be done but will never be
a reasonable configuration. It is better if the user starts thinking about
more ram and running Win98 as a guest in VPC on XP now and on Vista after
rtm.
 
I had covered that under a previous post as John Boy had reminded me. Loren
followed with the solution which necessitates getting the 3 files including
the boot.ini from an NT system. Otherwise I would guess that 3rd party is
the best solution.
 
My own solution is more drastic. Use XP as the base system and run Win98 in
a virtual machine under VPC. Then the user is not limited to 512MB of ram
in the machine. Win98 reaches the end of its product lifecycle next week
anyway.
 
Hi Loren,
Many thanks, I followed your instructions and I now have access to Win98SE
at the Vista boot menu (option 3).
 
Good solution for someone with XP. Why buy XP now if Win98 works well, and
I doubt many still using it care about the updates, most probably haven't
applied any in 5 years anyway. Good solid system for anyone still using it.
I have friends who won't ever change and my wife likes ME, so go figure.
She has fallen in love with Vista and IE7 though.
 
It isn't a question of Win98 working well or not. It is a question of the
bundled componenets like IE, OE, Media Player, and so on no longer having
security patches via WU. Tuesday's round of patches is the end. No more
for Win98/ME. The same will be true of XP SP1 in October.

Win98 is not a safe system except in a sandboxed environment like VPC.

Even if Win98 is working well, it is not going allow the ram expansion badly
needed in order for Vista to work well. It is simply past time to move on
from Win98 as a primary OS. The user only needs XP Home Upgrade edition
($99).

Getting ready for Vista will incur some costs in any case.
 
The machine I'm using Win98 on is part of a home network with XP Home on my
main machine providing ICS, so its well protected. Actually its home made
from components left over from previous upgrades so its ideal for me me to
trial Vista Beta on, I wouldn't be concerned if it blew up :)
I think the ram limit for Win98 is easily cured by limiting vcache in
system.ini. Although currently limited to 512MB, which is definetly low for
Vista, it's RDRAM which performs very well compared to the much newer DDR
installed on the other machine. Actually I found some even faster rdram on
ebay recently so I have been thinking this machine may yet get another lease
of life.
 
Since you had to know about and download the update feature for Win98, most
of those I know aren't using it, and they are many, don't much care about
the vulnerabilities and are content with the free firewall that was just
bought up by Norton, and most (yikes) are still paying Norton the annual fee
just because it came on their machines, or go without virus protection.
Nobody has anything important anyway, they just keep in touch with friends,
make friends and play a few games for oldies (which isn't that far away)
 
NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI only exist with Win2000, Win XP, and
Win2003 (server).

-- Andy
 
[Trying again - this didn't appear yet in my newsreader,
and Google doesn't seem to be indexing this group.]

I installed Vista on a second partition with 98SE and it (Vista) is working
well.

From the boot menu if I choose "Earlier version of Windows" i get an "ntldr
missing" message. Is there any way to get dual booting working?
Click to expand...

Works here. You need to have the BOOTSECT.BAK that the Vista install
should have made, and put Ntldr and Ntdetect (from any NT OS - NT
4/2K/XP) in the boot directory along with it, and make a boot.ini:

05/19/2006 12:55 AM 444,796 bootmgr
07/01/2006 10:40 AM 133 boot.ini
10/03/2004 05:34 PM 47,564 NTDETECT.COM
10/03/2004 05:34 PM 250,032 ntldr
05/11/1998 08:01 PM 222,390 IO.SYS
05/11/1998 08:01 PM 9 MSDOS.SYS
06/29/2006 10:44 PM 512 BOOTSECT.BAK

In your boot.ini, you need something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=C:\bootsect.bak="Win98" /win95dos
[operating systems]
C:\bootsect.bak="Win98" /win95dos

This points the boot manager to the Win98 bootsector that Vista
thoughtfully copied to BOOTSECT.BAK. The drive letter is relative to
when the Vista bootloader first sees the drives. Mine says C: because
the bootloader and bootsector are on the first primary partition -
even though once Vista is running that partiton is called D:.

Loren
 
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