Finer points of dual-boot configuration?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Donald Newcomb
  • Start date Start date
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Donald Newcomb

I recently "upgraded" my Win95 OSR2 system to Win2000 doing a clean install
on a new disk drive and leaving the old Win95 FAT32 drive alone, *except
that* I moved the Win95 drive to the 2nd IDE controller and installed the
new NTFS drive as the master on the first controller. I want to keep a
working copy of Win95 because there are a few programs that don't run under
2000. I thought that I would be able to dual-boot Win2000 and Win95, however
this has not happened. Win2000 works fine (It's on the G: drive.) It can
read the partitions on the old FAT32 drive just fine and I've been able to
move most of my data over. However, I can't dual-boot. Upon reading the fine
print, I see where it says that the boot partition of a dual boot system
must be FAT/FAT32.

So here are my questions:
1. Is there any way to boot Win95 as the first drive on the second
controller?
2. Do I have to move the FAT32 drive back to the 1st controller?
3. What procedure should I follow to minimize the pain of getting this
straightened out?
4. Would this configuration work if I installed another boot manager (e.g.
LILO)?
 
This article may help you.

How to Multiple Boot Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows Me, and MS-DOS
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q217210&


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows NT/2000 Operating Systems]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect.

:
| I recently "upgraded" my Win95 OSR2 system to Win2000 doing a clean
install
| on a new disk drive and leaving the old Win95 FAT32 drive alone, *except
| that* I moved the Win95 drive to the 2nd IDE controller and installed the
| new NTFS drive as the master on the first controller. I want to keep a
| working copy of Win95 because there are a few programs that don't run
under
| 2000. I thought that I would be able to dual-boot Win2000 and Win95,
however
| this has not happened. Win2000 works fine (It's on the G: drive.) It can
| read the partitions on the old FAT32 drive just fine and I've been able to
| move most of my data over. However, I can't dual-boot. Upon reading the
fine
| print, I see where it says that the boot partition of a dual boot system
| must be FAT/FAT32.
|
| So here are my questions:
| 1. Is there any way to boot Win95 as the first drive on the second
| controller?
| 2. Do I have to move the FAT32 drive back to the 1st controller?
| 3. What procedure should I follow to minimize the pain of getting this
| straightened out?
| 4. Would this configuration work if I installed another boot manager (e.g.
| LILO)?
| --
| Donald R. Newcomb
| DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net
|
|
|
 
Dave Patrick said:
This article may help you.

How to Multiple Boot Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows Me, and MS-DOS
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q217210&
Click to expand...

Thanks for the quick response, Dave. Yes, I did actually search the KB and
read that before I posted my question. What I failed to do is to fully
understand the requirements for dual-booting before installing Win 2000. So,
what I did was to bump my old Win 95 OSR 2 HD back to the 2nd IDE
controller. Installed a new HD on the 1st controller and loaded Win 2000 on
the new drive. I don't recall the Win 2000 install process ever asking me if
I wanted to dual-boot.

This left me with Win 2000 running very nicely on the HD-0 (G:) and three
FAT32 partitions on the old drive (C:, D: & E:), but no way to boot the Win
95 on the C: partition on the 2nd drive. I did "play around" with the
settings in BOOT.INI according to what I read in several KB articles, but
this
did not help. Every time I tried to boot to Win 95, it just kicked me back
to BIOS warm restart. Then I found the "fine print" that said that the
primary boot partition had to be FAT/FAT32 to dual boot with Win 95/98. My
BIOS says it will allow me select the order of the HD boot search. I've
tried forcing the BIOS to boot from the other HDs but that does not seem to
work either. I don't intend to install any FAT partitions on the 1st HD, so
there should be no issue of Win 95 reassigning the drive letters.

At this point in time, I don't want to go back and reinstall everyting. I'm
looking for a way to sort this out, without major surgery. Some things's
I've considered are:
1. Is there a setting for BOOT.INI that will let this configuration work?
2. Can I create a floppy that will allow me to boot Win 95 on the 2nd
drive?
3. Can I install a 3rd party boot program that will allow this configuration
to work?
4. If I swap the drives back and boot from the Win 2000 CDROM is there a way
to just fix the dual-boot situation without having to reload everyting?
5. If so, how?
 
Inline reply:

:
<snip>
| 1. Is there a setting for BOOT.INI that will let this configuration work?
* No there isn't. Some background info;
When you dualboot Win9x and Windows 2000; Windows 2000 creates a file named
bootsect.dos from the dos boot sector; if you select an operating system
other than Windows 2000, NTLDR loads bootsect.dos and passes control to it.
The operating system then starts up as normal, because bootsect.dos contains
the boot sector that was on the primary partition before you installed
Windows 2000.

| 2. Can I create a floppy that will allow me to boot Win 95 on the 2nd
| drive?
* IIRC win95 needs to be installed to the system partition, but possibly
from a win9x command prompt;
sys A:
Add the required files to the floppy, then adjust msdos.sys [Paths]
accordingly might work for you.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q151667
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q118579

| 3. Can I install a 3rd party boot program that will allow this
configuration
| to work?
* Probably yes.

| 4. If I swap the drives back and boot from the Win 2000 CDROM is there a
way
| to just fix the dual-boot situation without having to reload everyting?
* No you cannot unless you put the win9x drive back as drive 0 and reinstall
Windows 2000

| 5. If so, how?
<snip>

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows NT/2000 Operating Systems]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect.
 
Dave Patrick said:
| 2. Can I create a floppy that will allow me to boot Win 95 on the 2nd
| drive?
* IIRC win95 needs to be installed to the system partition, but possibly
from a win9x command prompt;
sys A:
Add the required files to the floppy, then adjust msdos.sys [Paths]
accordingly might work for you.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q151667
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q118579
Click to expand...

Thanks Dave, this worked pretty well. I just took one of the several boot
floppies I had in my drawer and copied the MSDOS.SYS file from the C: drive
to the floppy (after renaming the original MSDOS.SYS file). I then booted
from that floppy and, voila, the "good ole" Windows 95 banner appeared.
There were a few minor device issues, probably because I changed a few BIOS
settings in going to Win 2000 (e.g. enabled USB) but I think they are things
I think I can figure out. I now have enough access to Win 95 to do the few
things I still need to do with that OS.

I was pretty confident that I wouldn't mess up the Win 2000 drive, since Win
95 can't even see it.

Thanks again!
 
Glad to hear you got something going.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows NT/2000 Operating Systems]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect.

:
| Thanks Dave, this worked pretty well. I just took one of the several boot
| floppies I had in my drawer and copied the MSDOS.SYS file from the C:
drive
| to the floppy (after renaming the original MSDOS.SYS file). I then booted
| from that floppy and, voila, the "good ole" Windows 95 banner appeared.
| There were a few minor device issues, probably because I changed a few
BIOS
| settings in going to Win 2000 (e.g. enabled USB) but I think they are
things
| I think I can figure out. I now have enough access to Win 95 to do the few
| things I still need to do with that OS.
|
| I was pretty confident that I wouldn't mess up the Win 2000 drive, since
Win
| 95 can't even see it.
|
| Thanks again!
| --
| Donald R. Newcomb
| DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net
|
|
 
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