Should Vista boot with 98/Xp

swimtech · Jul 1, 2006, 04:48 AM

Hey guys,

Should Vista give me the option to boot on a drive that already dual boots 98 and Xp on a single large hard drive with 86 Gb of unallocated space left over?

PangingJr · Jul 1, 2006, 05:52 AM

i'm guessing here since i've not tried anything like these before...

if the Windows 98 is installed on the first primary partition of the hard drive and the XP is installed on a logical drive (of the extended partition) next to it and you also use the XP native boot loader to boot the two Windows's... then as of now the partition that contains the "boot files" (the hardware-specific files that are needed to start Windows, for example, Ntldr, Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com) for the XP is the Windows 98 partition.

now if you want to install the Vista on to another logical drive next to the XP... the Vista setup program will detect that you already have another or other Windows's installed on the system... but i'm not sure how it will configure its boot processes... i'm also guessing that Vista would install another set of boot files on to the Windows 98 partition and install the rest of its Windows operating system files onto the newly created logical drive (partition)...
when the system starts and during the boot process the active partition is searched for the boot files by the system BIOS... the Vista native boot loader comes over and gives you the choices to boot the XP partition or its own partition...
and then if you choosed to boot the XP, the XP boot loder comes along with its own boot menu that contains the Windows 98 and the XP.

and i'm guessing again that the legacy boot.ini file and its data then can be edited to remove the choice to booting the Windows 98 from the [operating systems] section, and you can add an entry using the bcdedit of the Vista, so that you can boot the Windows 98 by using the Vista native boot loder instead. problem is i have not learnt any things at all about the bcdedit yet, nor how's Vista booting works.

all i know for sure now that the Vista uses a completely different approach and technique to booting the Windows's
for a typical installation, one of its important boot files is residing in the %SystemRoot%\System32 and some other files are in the Boot of the root partition. the XP lays most or all of its boot files only in the root partition.

swimtech · Jul 1, 2006, 03:12 PM

PangingJr,

You have surmised precisely correct on my boot setup - I've got the simple, standard Microsoft configured boot menu available for 98 and XP at present. Sounds like I better image my present setup before I give Vista a go in case I need to edit the boot ini stuff or risk losing some or all of my present configuration... Thanks you so much for the informative response!

PangingJr · Jul 1, 2006, 03:51 PM

if you already have the tools (Acornis true image, Paragon drive backup, Norton Ghost... ) and hard drive space (on a secondary hard drive, external drive, network drive...) to store the partition image files you want to do that , as you know you don't have to worry when you want to get rid of the Vista.
hope you don't have any problems installing Vista.

swimtech · Jul 2, 2006, 05:12 PM

Theme to the the Six Million Dollar Man plays in backround...

Yes, we have the tools, we have the technology... And your wisdom.

I'll let you know how it goes - when I get to it - hopefully this week sometime. Nabbed the Beta yesterday on the last day of the open download. Just gotta see how it does on this "old girl" of a desktop. Can't risk it on the Macbook though, uh, yet...

Eck · Jul 5, 2006, 05:57 PM

I just did something like this on my computer. I've discovered that my Norton Partition Magic 8 is not compatible with Windows Vista. This, because I have UAC and driver signing disabled and installed it on Vista.

That messed things up in Vista so I formated and started over. I still used Partition Magic to create 3 primary partitions. I like the Partition Magic method because it keeps the non-active partitions hidden so each OS runs its own seperate computer. Each one is the C drive.

I've got 98SE, XP, and Vista running. Unfortunately both Boot Magic and PQBoot for Windows are also not compatible with Vista. So what I did was install Partition Magic on both the 98SE and XP partitions and use PQBoot on those to switch the active partition between them and also to the Vista partition.

That works, but the only way out of the Vista partition is to restart with a Partition Magic rescue floppy and use that to switch the active partition to one of the others. So I can easily, within 98SE and XP, use PQBoot for Windows to get into all the partitions but must go through the process of an interim boot up to the Partition Magic floppy to get back out of Vista.

It would have been nice to just use Vista's disc management console to switch back into the other partitions but Vista will not allow the selection of "Set Active" to be clicked on the other 2 partitions, although they do appear in its table.

This is acceptable for the moment. However it is obviously not ideal. Better than having C D and E drives (I hate that), but I sure hope Symantec makes a version fully compatible with Windows Vista.

Edit - Ah! I can use PQBoot to get out of Vista to the other partitions. I copied the folder over from the PM8 cd and although Vista warns me it isn't compatible, I can use it and it works fine. So I just created a shortcut on the Start Menu and use it to travel my partitions.

I think doing my partitions this way stops Vista's System Restore from being able to successfully complete restoring to saved restore points. It can save points, just not use them. So it's useless. I turned off System Restore since it wont work.

Once I got most of my stuff installed I also turned UAC back on. Might as well have whatever protection that provides. Not as annoying once most of my tinkering has already been done.

Edit - Well now, with the latest 5472 I wound up just having XP on one hard drive and Vista on the other, letting Vista set things up with its own boot loader. When I installed the new drive (old one I had lying around) I deleted the partition on it with the Partition Magic boot floppy, then started up XP and ran the Disk Management Console. I created a partition but did not give it a drive letter or format it, as I wanted Vista to handle all that. The other benefit is that I think if XP's System Restore doesn't see a drive letter it can't be deleting Vista restore points when XP boots up!

That wasn't my plan, but I has lost all my partitions on my 1st drive (98SE, XP, and Vista Build 5456) when I formatted the XP partition to install the latest RyanVM Post Service Pack 2 upgrade. When the XP setup rebooted to the hard drive to continue the install, all my partitions were gone! I mean there was nothing there but a big 250GB's of no partitions defined! Don't know exactly what happend but maybe having 98SE there and using PQBoot for stuff and also formatting away whatever Vista might have put on the XP partition bonked things. To be sure, I zero'd out the drive and just had XP put itself on all of it and then installed the new drive for Vista.

Live and Learn!

MGaunce · Aug 20, 2006, 08:56 PM

BCDedit is the best way to deal with almost all dual boot/delete partition issues. The syntax can be gotten from a Vista command prompt, but the info is a little confusing. To see an example of using BCDedit visit this Kb article. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529/en-us

Jul 1, 2006, 04:48 AM	#1
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	Should Vista boot with 98/Xp Hey guys, Should Vista give me the option to boot on a drive that already dual boots 98 and Xp on a single large hard drive with 86 Gb of unallocated space left over? __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Jul 1, 2006, 05:52 AM	#2
PangingJr Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 5,989 Rep Power: 71	i'm guessing here since i've not tried anything like these before... if the Windows 98 is installed on the first primary partition of the hard drive and the XP is installed on a logical drive (of the extended partition) next to it and you also use the XP native boot loader to boot the two Windows's... then as of now the partition that contains the "boot files" (the hardware-specific files that are needed to start Windows, for example, Ntldr, Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com) for the XP is the Windows 98 partition. now if you want to install the Vista on to another logical drive next to the XP... the Vista setup program will detect that you already have another or other Windows's installed on the system... but i'm not sure how it will configure its boot processes... i'm also guessing that Vista would install another set of boot files on to the Windows 98 partition and install the rest of its Windows operating system files onto the newly created logical drive (partition)... when the system starts and during the boot process the active partition is searched for the boot files by the system BIOS... the Vista native boot loader comes over and gives you the choices to boot the XP partition or its own partition... and then if you choosed to boot the XP, the XP boot loder comes along with its own boot menu that contains the Windows 98 and the XP. and i'm guessing again that the legacy boot.ini file and its data then can be edited to remove the choice to booting the Windows 98 from the [operating systems] section, and you can add an entry using the bcdedit of the Vista, so that you can boot the Windows 98 by using the Vista native boot loder instead. problem is i have not learnt any things at all about the bcdedit yet, nor how's Vista booting works. all i know for sure now that the Vista uses a completely different approach and technique to booting the Windows's for a typical installation, one of its important boot files is residing in the %SystemRoot%\System32 and some other files are in the Boot of the root partition. the XP lays most or all of its boot files only in the root partition. Last edited by PangingJr; Jul 1, 2006 at 08:09 AM.

Jul 1, 2006, 03:12 PM	Thread Starter #3
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	PangingJr, You have surmised precisely correct on my boot setup - I've got the simple, standard Microsoft configured boot menu available for 98 and XP at present. Sounds like I better image my present setup before I give Vista a go in case I need to edit the boot ini stuff or risk losing some or all of my present configuration... Thanks you so much for the informative response! __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Jul 2, 2006, 05:12 PM	Thread Starter #5
swimtech HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: North Carolina Posts: 4,040 Rep Power: 124 System Specs	Theme to the the Six Million Dollar Man plays in backround... Yes, we have the tools, we have the technology... And your wisdom. I'll let you know how it goes - when I get to it - hopefully this week sometime. Nabbed the Beta yesterday on the last day of the open download. Just gotta see how it does on this "old girl" of a desktop. Can't risk it on the Macbook though, uh, yet... __________________ It's not so much getting your way that matters or not - what matters is how you go about getting it.

Jul 5, 2006, 05:57 PM	#6
Eck DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 154 Rep Power: 0	I just did something like this on my computer. I've discovered that my Norton Partition Magic 8 is not compatible with Windows Vista. This, because I have UAC and driver signing disabled and installed it on Vista. That messed things up in Vista so I formated and started over. I still used Partition Magic to create 3 primary partitions. I like the Partition Magic method because it keeps the non-active partitions hidden so each OS runs its own seperate computer. Each one is the C drive. I've got 98SE, XP, and Vista running. Unfortunately both Boot Magic and PQBoot for Windows are also not compatible with Vista. So what I did was install Partition Magic on both the 98SE and XP partitions and use PQBoot on those to switch the active partition between them and also to the Vista partition. That works, but the only way out of the Vista partition is to restart with a Partition Magic rescue floppy and use that to switch the active partition to one of the others. So I can easily, within 98SE and XP, use PQBoot for Windows to get into all the partitions but must go through the process of an interim boot up to the Partition Magic floppy to get back out of Vista. It would have been nice to just use Vista's disc management console to switch back into the other partitions but Vista will not allow the selection of "Set Active" to be clicked on the other 2 partitions, although they do appear in its table. This is acceptable for the moment. However it is obviously not ideal. Better than having C D and E drives (I hate that), but I sure hope Symantec makes a version fully compatible with Windows Vista. Edit - Ah! I can use PQBoot to get out of Vista to the other partitions. I copied the folder over from the PM8 cd and although Vista warns me it isn't compatible, I can use it and it works fine. So I just created a shortcut on the Start Menu and use it to travel my partitions. I think doing my partitions this way stops Vista's System Restore from being able to successfully complete restoring to saved restore points. It can save points, just not use them. So it's useless. I turned off System Restore since it wont work. Once I got most of my stuff installed I also turned UAC back on. Might as well have whatever protection that provides. Not as annoying once most of my tinkering has already been done. Edit - Well now, with the latest 5472 I wound up just having XP on one hard drive and Vista on the other, letting Vista set things up with its own boot loader. When I installed the new drive (old one I had lying around) I deleted the partition on it with the Partition Magic boot floppy, then started up XP and ran the Disk Management Console. I created a partition but did not give it a drive letter or format it, as I wanted Vista to handle all that. The other benefit is that I think if XP's System Restore doesn't see a drive letter it can't be deleting Vista restore points when XP boots up! That wasn't my plan, but I has lost all my partitions on my 1st drive (98SE, XP, and Vista Build 5456) when I formatted the XP partition to install the latest RyanVM Post Service Pack 2 upgrade. When the XP setup rebooted to the hard drive to continue the install, all my partitions were gone! I mean there was nothing there but a big 250GB's of no partitions defined! Don't know exactly what happend but maybe having 98SE there and using PQBoot for stuff and also formatting away whatever Vista might have put on the XP partition bonked things. To be sure, I zero'd out the drive and just had XP put itself on all of it and then installed the new drive for Vista. Live and Learn! __________________ Epox 8KRAIPRO/Asus A7V880 Crucial 3200DDR 512x2 Sempron 3300+/AthlonXP3200 Gigabyte NVidia 6600GT/ATI Radeon x850PRO 250GB Maxtor Sata/250GB Maxtor ATA Audigy 2 ZS Platinum/Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro Last edited by Eck; Jul 24, 2006 at 06:06 AM.

Jul 1, 2006, 03:51 PM	#4
PangingJr Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 5,989 Rep Power: 71	if you already have the tools (Acornis true image, Paragon drive backup, Norton Ghost... ) and hard drive space (on a secondary hard drive, external drive, network drive...) to store the partition image files you want to do that , as you know you don't have to worry when you want to get rid of the Vista. hope you don't have any problems installing Vista.

Aug 20, 2006, 08:56 PM	#7
MGaunce DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 5 Rep Power: 0	BCDedit is the best way to deal with almost all dual boot/delete partition issues. The syntax can be gotten from a Vista command prompt, but the info is a little confusing. To see an example of using BCDedit visit this Kb article. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529/en-us