Loading OS -help needed

Abarbarian

Abarbarian

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Hi Well I got me pc built .

Got some probs though .

HDD - ok
Memory- ok
CPU-ok
Mobo- ok
Etc -ok

I got the thing running but I think the Cd drive could have been erratic which led to some OS loading probs . So I fitted me new DVD burner and this seems to have helped .

Took out me HDD and piggybacked it on my working pc . re-formated it with Partition magic . 5GB - Fat 32 , then remaining 115Gb NFTS .

Wanted to put 98 on first then Xp

Tried to load 98 , and it re-formatted the whole drive , not a problem I thought .

98 seemed to load and I get to the opening screen and then it throws me back to a black screen where I'm offered a range of start ups , Normal, SafeMode etc . Choose Safe Mode and I get a black screen with ,

Insufficient Memory to Inittialise Windows
Quit memory resident programs or remove unnessesary utilities .

I'm stummped :confused:

Now I've got a HDD formatted in Fat32 I guesss which won't load 98 ( I used the 98cd last week and it worked fine) Please don't tell me i have to take out the HDD and format it again .
I've got Partition Magic 7 (I've used this before) but can't get it to load or work at all on this pc (fitted a floppy that works)

I know the rigg works as I've already had XP up and running on it .

Hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllp :D

Inventions of the devil , thats what pc's are :cool:
 
Why a 5gig partition for Win98?

Why not all NTFS?

Its not really recommended you use two separate Operating sytems on one HDD really anyway.

Im just being inquizative :D
 
From my experience,I have run Linux Win98 and Winxp on the one hard drive., with no problem. Each reads it own partition type and ignores the other. I chose to run a boot manager which gives me choice of which OS to run. You may encounter problems if two OS can read each others partition. Win98 cannot read NTFS partition unless you have installed and run a third party program. So formatting hard drive completely into NTFS AND ATTEMPTING TO BOOT FROM Win98 setup disk will not work. It is true that Win98 will not read a folder larger than 5gig on a fat32 partition, it can read a hard drive with a partition larger than 5gig. Problems exist with Win98 when a particular third party partition manager is used and logical drives and active partitions, ones and zeros are set incorrectly (my experience). Win98 use some of the hard drive as memory when in use and problems occur if a drive is formatted incorrectly and returns garbled data as a result. My recommendation is to download a harddrive setup utility from the manufacturer of your hard drive (free) use it to fully format all sectors not just a quik format. Once formatted use the same proprietry software provided from the hard disk manufacturer to set up the partitions as you choose. I cannot see how Win98 can read an NTFS partition and format it and then install, unless you went into FDISK AND PLAYED WITH THAT or your third party program made a boo boo in settingup ready for win98 install. Then you should be free to install the other OS into the NTFS partition, ignoring the crappy warnings.

Reformat properly.:p
 
mangrove_jack said:
From my experience,I have run Linux Win98 and Winxp on the one hard drive., with no problem. Each reads it own partition type and ignores the other. I chose to run a boot manager which gives me choice of which OS to run. You may encounter problems if two OS can read each others partition. Win98 cannot read NTFS partition unless you have installed and run a third party program. So formatting hard drive completely into NTFS AND ATTEMPTING TO BOOT FROM Win98 setup disk will not work. It is true that Win98 will not read a folder larger than 5gig on a fat32 partition, it can read a hard drive with a partition larger than 5gig. Problems exist with Win98 when a particular third party partition manager is used and logical drives and active partitions, ones and zeros are set incorrectly (my experience). Win98 use some of the hard drive as memory when in use and problems occur if a drive is formatted incorrectly and returns garbled data as a result. My recommendation is to download a harddrive setup utility from the manufacturer of your hard drive (free) use it to fully format all sectors not just a quik format. Once formatted use the same proprietry software provided from the hard disk manufacturer to set up the partitions as you choose. I cannot see how Win98 can read an NTFS partition and format it and then install, unless you went into FDISK AND PLAYED WITH THAT or your third party program made a boo boo in settingup ready for win98 install. Then you should be free to install the other OS into the NTFS partition, ignoring the crappy warnings.

Reformat properly.:p
Click to expand...

No Win98 wont you right. Not even Fdisk will see it. It will only see the 5gig partition and register the drive as only being 5gig in size as far as I can remember. Not used '98 now for some 5 or so years so cant remember all the details :)

Nice explanation tho m8 thanks
 
Yeah tipledex, I believe from memory that an NTFS in FDISK appears as a unused/unknown partition within an extended logical dos drive setup in an inactive partition.:confused: ;) It was allways a pain to use to remove NTFS but is able to be done. The exact sequence/location I aint sure about...too slack to find my old Win98 startup disk. I allways use Maxtor or similar to set up bung drives. Seagate is the easiest.
 
Thanks for the replies guys , but I think that you've misunderstood me problem . I probably didn't explain it properly . :o

I never knew about the Seagate formating tool so I'll go and give that a looksie .

You can run 98 and XP on the same hard drive . I was told that you have to put 98 at the start of the HDD followed by XP . I've had this running on my pc before . I had to use Partition Magic 7.00 (via 2 floppy discs) to hide and unhide partitions everytime I wanted to swap OS . As you'll realise this was not the fastest way to run 2 OS .

I only want a small partition on my build pc with 98 on it so I can play some older games . As I'm not going to do anything else with 98 5Gb should be large enough I think .

I'll try the Seagate tool to see if I can resolve my problem before I give a clear step by step of my problem .

:D :cool:
 
You are over complicating things ...

Use a Win98 Boot Disk and FDISK the drive to two logical partitions ... that should give you a C & D drive ... now format C & install 98

Use the XP CD to load XP .. it will "see" 98 and the unformatted drive D ... install to drive D
... at boot you should be asked which OS do you want to load.

An easer option is to FDISK the drive to one partion ... load 98 ... boot to XP CD and it should ask how much space do you want for XP ... you again be given a choice of what OS to load.

The best option is to have TWO HDs ... ;)
 
I guess I will offer my opinion as another alternative. The labour intensive use described in hiding one OS from another would drive me insane. If you aint a puter dummy, use FDISK for sure. If your a lazy bum like me, use the Seagate wizard if you have a seagate hardrive. In using wizard, setup for XP (not Win98) and format not in auto but advanced manual settings. Here you will setup for XP and deselect the default option from the drop down menu and select FAT32 for your chosen 5gig use of Win98. The remainder that is left, setup as NTFS. I would use 20gig increments personally, creating as many drives dependant on your drive capacity. My reasoning is simple...I would use "D" drive for your XP OS. "F" drive will contain your swap file and Temporary Internet Folder which you configure once your OS is installed. It will also double as a storage for your personal stuff. "E" drive by the way will contain your new Program Files folder, where any programs outside of your normal OS will be located to when you install them. You have to just change the assigned drive letter from typically "C" to "E" when setting up progs. This prevents XP from using any available space from anywhere within your OS drive ("D") were it not setup into 20 gig partitions when running programs and stuff. Making for quiker running on larger hardrives. Do not install the bootmanager/loader if you see it. Exit utility once done and Win98 will setup no probs in the Fat32 partition when you use CD setup. This is because the utility correctly assigns an active drive (plus logical drives etc) and sets it up as an active partition to boot from. Once Win98 installed, install XP into the NTFS partition, which I think would be "D" drive. "C" drive obviously has Win98. Once XP has setup, a reboot will confirm that you will have provided for you an option to choose which OS you want to use. Remember that not all programs are up to speed to running on an NTFS partition in rare cases. Have fun :p
 
Thanks muckshifter for the reply .

My problem is that I've tried to load 98 . it asked me if I wanted to format the drive and only gave me an option to format drive C: . I did that and it started to load 98 . Something went wrong and it didn't load properly .

Now I switch on the pc . It goes past the bios screen and gets to ,

Boot fro cd :

I put in 98 disc and press enter ,

get 2 options ,

boot from CD or HDD ,

I boot from HDD and it takes me to ,

Start in Safe Mode , Normal , etc 6 choices in all ,

Choose Safe Mode or Normal ,

get to Windows 98 startup screen and the it goes to a black screen with,

Insufficient Memory to Inittialise Windows
Quit memory resident programs or remove unnessesary utilities .

Pc then shuts down .

Tried the Seagate Disc Wizard .

Downloaded from site , put ISO onto CD ( as floppy may be dodgy).

Put disc in pc , power up ,

boot from cd:

runs prog ,

get , welcome to Seagate , installing files,

get black screen with lots of info , scrolls through all this quickly , then ,

for a split second shows main Seagate Start screen ,

goes to black screen with ,

Your RAM Disc is D:\
Thank you for using Disc Wizard Starter Edition
D:\>

and thats it . I can't find any refference to this screen at seagates site and don't know what to do from here .

:confused:


:lol: Inventions of the devil , thats what they are :lol:
 
A Win98 "Boot Disk" is a Floppy ... do you have one? ... what happens if you use it?

:cool:
 
muckshifter said:
A Win98 "Boot Disk" is a Floppy ... do you have one? ... what happens if you use it?

:cool:
Click to expand...

Have a 98 CD . No floppy disk , me floppy drives seem to be faulty so even if I had one couldn't use it .

Managed to get to a point where I was asked for DOS commands .
This gave me info that C: was Fat 32 and 5Gb and active .
Deleted partition and tried to reinstall 98 .
Ended up back where I started from 5 hours ago .
Partialy loaded 98 going round in circles .
:confused:


:lol: Inventions of the devil , thats what they are :lol:
 
I've probably completely misunderstood - but I'll add my twopence worth.

Try booting with the 98cd, and use Fdisk to make sure that C drive (5gb) is active. Reboot and format C (Fat32) Leave the other partition unformatted.
Use the format command /c/u/s. If every thing goes correctly, you should be able to then boot to the C: prompt. Make a dir called Win98, navigate to it and copy the contents from the Win98 dir on the CD. This will also make sure the CD is being read correctly by copying over all the files. Type setup and install 98 drom the hard drive.

Covenant
 
Thanks guys for the info .

Somehow I managed to run seagate's disk wizard and clean format the hdd .After failing to load 98 I cleaned the hdd and formated in NFTS and blow me XP loaded at the first go . So while I seem to have a stable os I'm busy trying out lots of new programs and seeing if I can set up some new cards etc . I'll try and get 2 OS running later on when I've given me poor old brain a rest .

Did panic a bit when the pc started to switch of at random though . Found out it was caused by the piggy back power socket for my desktop speakers , the slightest movement cut the power to the pc . Fitted a different set of speakers and problem solved . :D
 
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