Multiple Operating Systems & Hard drives

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I am considering buying a new hard drive & windows XP but
am wondering if I put a new hard drive in with my current
one will both hard drives be recognised as seperate
partitions? As i am planning on keeping windows 98 as well.
 
Greetings --

The simplest way I've found to dual boot between Win9x and WinXP
would be to partition your drive(s) roughly as follows:

C: Primary FAT32 Win9x/Legacy Apps
D: Extended NTFS WinXP/Modern Apps

Adjust the partition sizes according to your actual hard drive(s)
size and the amount of space you'd like to allocate to each OS and its
applications.

Create the partitions using Win9x's FDISK so you can enable large
disk support (FAT32). (No need for 3rd party partitioning
utilities/boot managers and their frequent complications.)

Install Win9x first, being sure to select "C:\Windows" (or
D:\Windows, if you prefer) when asked for the default Windows
directory. When you subsequently install WinXP, be sure to specify
"D:\Winnt" (or "D:\Windows," "C:\Winnt" as referred/applicable) when
asked for the default Windows directory, to place it in the other
partition. The WinXP installation routine will automatically set up a
Multi-boot menu for you. The default settings for this menu can be
readily edited from within WinXP. NOTE: If you elect to place Win98
on the "D:" drive, you'll _have_ to leave the "C:" drive as FAT32.

This method can be adapted to using 2 physical hard drives by
placing the boot partition (C:, which still must be FAT32) and either
of the operating systems on the Primary Master hard drive, and the
second operating system on the second hard drive.

It is also possible to have a 3rd partition for shared
applications, but it would be necessary for such a partition to be
formatted in the common file format (FAT32). The applications would
also have to be installed into each OS (to ensure proper system file
placement and registry updates), one at a time, but the bulk of the
program files could be located on this common partition. I do not,
however, actually recommend doing this as, if you were to uninstall
such an application from one OS, you may not be able to gracefully
uninstall it from the second OS, having already deleted crucial
installation data during the first uninstall action.

Just about everything you need to know (URLs may wrap):

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q217/2/10.ASP

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/multiboot.asp

Bruce Chambers

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Hi, Anonymous.

Each hard drive must be partitioned before it can be formatted, even if you
choose to create only a single partition covering the whole HD. You may
divide each HD into as many as 4 partitions, all of them primary partitions
unless you choose to make one of them an "extended partition". In an
extended partition, you can create multiple "logical drives". Each primary
partition and each logical drive is a "volume". Each volume will be
assigned a "drive letter", after which it can be formatted. You can choose
to format each volume in the older FAT32 format (which uses a File
Allocation Table) or the newer, more secure, NTFS (Net Technology File
System). If each physical drive has only a single primary partition, then
the terms "drive", "partition" and "volume" are synonymous, but that is not
always the case.

When you have two Windows installations on the same computer, we call that
"dual booting". Multiple booting is a more accurate term, because we can
install more than two different copies of Windows. We can install multiple
copies of WinNT, Win2K and/or WinXP, plus a single copy of Win9x/ME. Each
should be in a separate volume, but that volume can be on any HD in the
computer. No matter where we install any copy of Windows, the actual boot
process must start on the first partition on the first HD, typically Drive
C:. Only a few "system files" have to be in C:\; the rest of Windows can be
in the "boot folder", which is usually named \Windows. It is quite common
to have Win98 in C:\Windows and WinXP in D:\Windows.

Win9x/ME can't read from, write to, boot from, or even SEE an NTFS volume.
And, since the boot process must begin in Drive C:, that volume must be
formatted FAT32. The volume where Win9x/ME is to be installed must also be
FAT32, as well as any volume holding programs or data to be accessed by
Win9x/ME. Many users install Win9x/ME in Drive C:, although that is not a
requirement.

Remember the rule to install the NEWEST Windows LAST. Since you already
have Win98 installed (in C:\Windows, I assume), just physically connect your
new HD as the slave on the primary IDE channel (or as secondary master, if
you prefer). Then set your computer to boot from the CD/DVD drive. Boot
from the WinXP CD-ROM and follow the prompts, choosing to do a clean install
into a new partition, NOT to "upgrade" Win98. One of the first prompts
offers to partition and format your HD; let it create the partition on the
new drive, format it, and install WinXP there. WinXP will detect that you
already have Win98 on your computer and will automatically create the files
needed to dual-boot. On each reboot afterwards, you will see a menu from
which you can choose Win98 or WinXP for that session.

Normally, I would recommend that you format the new volume as NTFS.
However, if you plan to use that volume with Win98, then format it FAT32.
Later, when you are sure that all your applications and device drivers are
working properly with WinXP, you can delete the Win98 boot folder (to
reclaim the disk space it uses) and then use the native convert.exe program
to convert both C: and D: to NTFS.

RC
 
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