Greetings --
The simplest way I've found to dual boot between Win9x and Win2K
would be to partition your drive(s) roughly as follows:
C: FAT32 Win9x/Legacy Apps & Games
D: NTFS Win2K/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. You needn't use the FAT32 or NTFS file systems for the
two OS partitions unless you want to, but this configuration allows
you to take full advantage of both OS's partition size, file
management, and (for Win2K) security features. If you like, all of
the partitions, as long as they're no larger than 2 Gb, can be FAT16.
I don't recommend this, however, as it's terribly wasteful of hard
drive space. When I last converted a 2 Gb FAT16 partition to FAT32, I
gained an additional 300 Mb of free space. (Your results will vary, of
course, based upon the types and sizes of files you have on the
partition.)
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 Win2K, 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 Win2K installation routine will automatically set up a
Multi-boot menu for you. The default settings for this menu can be
readily edited from within Win2K. 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/windows2000/techinfo/administration/management/mltiboot.asp
Bruce Chambers
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