[Visno]

I have checked the Microsoft website and I couldn't find the information but here goes. I have 120 gig NTFS HD Winxp and a 10 gig HD with win98. I have the 120 gig HD as primary.... Winxp starts up fine. I was wondering how do I get the option to chose between windows 98 or xp at boot up without unpluging one or the other before I boot up. Note these are real seperate drives not partitions.

Thanks in advance.

[Sourcer_2002]

Im pretty sure yould prolly edit the boot.ini and the win98 boot line to it.

[Visno]

I know about the boot.ini but I have no idea what to change in there. I couldn't find any information when I searched for that info at microsoft.

[Sourcer_2002]

well i know you would have to unhide it and go into the files props and undo read only status.. Then open the file in notepad word etc. And then add a line like the following: multi(0)disk(2)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=" Microsoft Windows 98" /fastdetect ( im assuming that windows is on the secondary HDD and that is on the first partition ) also make sure you have the time out set. It would help if you would post the contents of your boot.ini

[Visno]

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect








I have drive c: as the winxp and e: as the win98. Drive c: has winxp installed and drive e: has win98 installed.

[Sourcer_2002]

okay so is the first drive (10 gig) on the primary channel? and the larger one with XP on the secondary? and have you tryed selecting windows from the boot options to see id would boot?

[Visno]

No drive c: with windows xp is Primary 120 gig NTFS, and drive E: Secondary is windows 98 10 gig FAT32.

[Sourcer_2002]

Ok but is that 10 gig drive pluged into the secondary channel on the primary controller?
Also try this here for some info

If your drive are as followed 120 on the first channel on the primary controller (or master), and the 10 gig on the secondary channel on the primary controler (or slave). Then i think this my work

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(2)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windo ws 98"

[Visno]

Secondary controller... I tried what you posted but it only works on the xp option, otherwise the system reboots when I pick the win98 option.

[Sourcer_2002]

try this multi(0)disk(2)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windo ws 98"

[Visno]

I was looking at that website you posted. I think that will work. I'll let you know.

[Sourcer_2002]

i kow its somthing righ here in these options multi(0)disk(2)rdisk(2)partition(1)

[Visno]

It's not working but to clear something up drive c: windows xp is Primary Master and drive e: win98 is primary slave. Maybe that is why it is not working.

[Sourcer_2002]

dik bootcfg /copy /d Operating System Description /ID# try that at the command prompt

[Sourcer_2002]

ere Operating System Description is a text description (e.g. Windows XP Home Edition), and where # specifies the boot entry ID in the operating systems section of the BOOT.INI file from which the copy has to be made.

[Visno]

The command won't work. Think I would have to run it in repair mode from the winxp install. Thanks for your help though maybe someone else will help. I'm going to sleep though .

[PangingJr]

Win98 do not commonly support booting from a non-primary disk and also require that its the only visible, active, primary os partition on a disk... before you can boot win98 from a non-primary disk, you must hide all primary part. on all preceding disks.
...effective/easy way is to use an os selecter or boot manager software so it can hide primary part. on multiple disks and detects all os(es) part. then you can choose which os to boot. good luck

[Visno]

Thanks again to those that helped.

To clarify how I fixed my problem.

I put the 10 gig on primary master and the 120 gig on primary second.
Reformated.
Installed windows 98 SE first on drive c: which is now the 10 gig.
Then I installed winxp on drive d: the 120 gig.

Now I can multiboot fine So the moral is if you have two hard drives. The older os needs to be installed on the c: drive otherwise it will cause problems.

[TEmp69]

About the WinNT/XP bootloader, it can only BOOT from the primary master HD and will just execute bootsectors from the C: path!

This means that if you have a harddisk with 3 primary partitions |WinXP|DOS|LINUX as example and you WANT the winNT/XP bootloader to choose between the OS's you need a program which can write the bootsector ( first sector of each partition has this and its 512 bytes big ) to a file. The only program i know is "dd" which comes with every Linux distribution i think, if you dont have linux installed check out www.knoppix.de for a bootable linux CD.

Example:

You want to install | WinXP | DOS | Linux on your primary harddisk, we will call it hda, hda0=WinXP, hda1=DOS, hda2=Linux. You do not need to create extended partitions for this, just 3 primaries.

Now start installing the OS's, always hide the two other partitions meanwhile, the one partition you install the OS unhide and set active!!

Lets see:

* Hide hda1 & hda2 partitions
* Install WinXP on hda0
* Hide the WinXP partition
* Unhide and set active the hda1
* Install DOS on hda1
* Hide the DOS partition
* Unhide and set active the hda2
* Install Linux (dont let it install a bootloader on hda0, only on the local hda2)

* Okay now unhide all and set hda0 active.

* Use the knoppix CD and bootup, get into a root console cltr-alt-f2 i think is a command for it, check out the knoppix faq

* In the console check your setup: "fdisk -l" will print out a list of the HD and you will see something like hda, hda0-2

* Now we read out the bootsector of each partition: use "man dd" to see the command syntax (lets see if i know offhand)

Mount your WinXP partition (might be good deal to install it with FAT32 and after all the bootoptions work change it into an NTFS since linux support for it aint stable yet afaik)

(create a C directory at /: cd \, mkdir C)
mount -t vfat /dev/hda0 /C

Now we write the DOS bootsector into a file on hda0 and then the one from hda2
dd in=/dev/hda1 count=1 bs=512 of=/C/bootsec_dos.sec
dd in=/dev/hda2 count=1 bs=512 of=/C/bootsec_linux.sec


Okay now we have the bootsectors from hda1-2 on our WinXP one, now all you need to do is add those two lines
to the boot.ini:
C:\bootsec_dos="DOS"
C:\bootsec_linux="Linux"

Thats it!!!


Known issues:

DOS
The commandshell from dos as you know is command.com, the bootsector file can only execute the shell from C: this means that if you choose this option to start you will get a screen loading the bootsector file and then telling you it cant find the command.com (shell) and give you a simple prompt
>

at the prompt just enter:
>D:\command.com[enter]

and it will start, if you know how to hack the bootsec_dos.sec file to change the drive let me know, this issue disappears once you change the winxp partiotion into an ntfs , since after the winnt/xp bootloader loads up and u choose DOS to start the new C: will be DOS since the NTFS disappears from the filesystem DOS can read!!!!

LINUX:
You might get a problem loading the Kernel, because the local bootloader might not have entered the right partition where it is, just use Knoppix CD to boot up, mount the Linux filesys and edit the grub.conf(/boot/grub) or lilo.conf (/etc/lilo.conf) file and if necessary write out the new bootsector from the linux partition.


================================================== ================

If you hate all this and find it too complicated, install every OS you like and then Linux as well as last, and let grub
do the dirty work :P)

[PangingJr]

Originally posted by TEmp69
================================================== ==============
If you hate all this and find it too complicated, install every OS you like and then Linux as well as last, and let grub do the dirty work :P)

if i like to have Win 98 and DOS on 2nd or 3rd HDD, Can linux loader detects and boot the OSs?

[Duffy Jr]

As Temp69 said 98 is the only stubborn one, and will more than likely give you problems down the road if 98 can't have its way and boot from the C: drive. Linux and 2k could care less where they boot from. I have been dual booting 2k & 98 for a few months now and I wouldn't waste my money on a 3rd party partition or boot program. 2k's boot loader has worked flawlessly for me.

I have all but uninstalled 98 (my wife doesn't like 2k, go figure). I have all my games running in 2k, even the ones that arn't programed to. My next project is to do like you and learn Linux, I refuse to go to XP and let Bill tell me how many times I can change my hardware!

[Crash Override]

Originally posted by Duffy Jr
My next project is to do like you and learn Linux, I refuse to go to XP and let Bill tell me how many times I can change my hardware!

I change my hardware all the time and never have any issues with activation. Also if the activation wizard does ever trip then you just call an ms representative and they will issue you a number to type in and it will reset the counter all over again.

Matter of fact the only time i can think of having an issue was before they changed the limit. It was lower and I had to call in one time. Since they raised I dont know how many times ive changed this or that......added a virtual device and then removed it, swapped vid cards, HD's, mobo's, CPU's.

All without a hangup

[PangingJr]

i used to have dual booting 98 & NT for about a year and thats in 1998, removed them all and never want to use the MS dual boot config anymore. now i got 98 / XP-ntfs / 2k / 2k-server on my 1st HDD, on 2nd HDD i got 98 / SuSE8 / redhat7 / mandrake9. all windows OSs are in C: drive. i plan to remove the XP-ntfs and the 2k-server then i'll put in XP-fat32 and longhorn for a test... i did/do all of that with the help of a 3rd party progarms and i could use a freeware if i want to. the NT loader or LiLo never worked for me i mean the way i want it to be or i just dont know how to?