Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion (
More info?)
"John" <nospam@nospam.ca> wrote in message
news:u44m41hdq5dv3lq2moobpi0rv83a67o5dp@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:21:24 -0800, "Gary S. Terhune"
<grystnews@mvps.org>
> wrote:
>
> >OK. I *think* I have your situation clear in my mind (sorry for the
> >delay, yesterday just kept getting worser and worser.) Some questions
> >that I need the answers to before advising on procedure.
> >
> >You have used BING to shrink your current Windows 98 system partition
> >(first partition on HD0) to 5 GB.
>
> That is correct
>
> >How much free space does that leave on
> >that partition? Either check Properties on C:\ from within Win98,
> >or use Properties in BING to see how much is Free. Note, I'm talking
only about
> >that first partition on HD0 and how much is Used vs how much is Free.
>
> 2.26 GB used, 2.80 free. It contains W98SE, and a few programs which
> automatically installed there (MSIE, my PDA sw, etc.)
That's a decently healthy structure. I'll assume that you've left the
swap file and TEMP and Temporary Internet files in their default
locations, in which case you need that kind of free space to maintain
performance and avoid errors.
> Most programs and other stuff I installed are on HD 1, which is not
partitioned.
OK, just a small correction in your understanding--if a disk is to be
used, it *must* be partitioned. It may only have one partition that
occupies the entire disk, but it is still "partitioned". May sound like
I'm splitting hairs, but clear understanding of the structures involved
is important if you want to avoid potentially serious misunderstandings.
> >
> >You have a second partition on HD0. Is it a Primary Partition? (Not
an
> >Extended partition with a Volume inside it?)
>
> Yes (AFAIK)
>
> > How large is it?
>
> 13.5 GB
> I hope to install Windows XP on it, and also the few programs that I
can use
> with XP only
OK, that's different. You previously gave 3.5 GB as the size for that
partition, and that won't work. 13.5 GB is just fine for your purpose.
> >Come to think of it, how large are these hard drives?
>
> HD 0 - 20 GB; HD1 - 40 GB
> >
> >You'll have noticed that I don't use drive letters to identify
> >partitions and volumes. They don't apply at this level, and,
depending
> >on how you set this up, the letters assigned to each volume may
change
> >according to which OS you boot to in the future.
> >
> >To further clarify, you wish to install WinXP so that each OS is
hidden
> >from the other?
>
> I'm not sure how to answer that, but as little as I understand it, I
would say
> "yes":
>
> >Have you purchased BING and do you intend to use it as
> >the Boot Manager?
>
> Not yet (I still have 27 days trial left). However, I think it would
be good to
> purchase it.
BING is definitely nice to have, and while I've bought it and have
occasionally installed it, I find myself more often just cancelling the
installation and using the tools to work with things--IOW, I don't do
any true multi-booting, I just have some hidden partitions that I
sometimes manually activte for various reasons.
> (incidenatlly, I have W 98XP upgrade (not yet unpacked)
> Will it do the job for me?
Yes, but unless you are going to let XP Setup see the Win98 partition
(which will cause it to install its own boot manager to the Win98
partition, making it more complicated to later uninstall or "disappear"
the WinXP side) you need to have a copy of your original Win98
installation files on hand to prove upgrade eligibility. XP Setup will
ask for this proof, one way or another.
> > (The other option is to let Windows XP install a boot
> >manager, which it will install to your Win98 OS partition, and use
that
> >instead. If so, WinXP will be able to see the Win98 OS partition, but
> >not necessarily the other way around.)
> >
> >Do you intend to use WinXP with the NTFS file system, or with FAT32?
>
> I'm not sure how to answer that - don't know what the difference is.
The NTFS file system is safer and more secure. It's harder to break into
if you employ decent user management, and it's more stable, less likely
to get fouled up. Which brings me to a certain crusade item: When
setting up Windows XP, you'll be initially set up as the "Owner", a user
that has Administrative rights. You need these rights to do many things,
including install applications. But if you normally run XP as an
administrator, you are more vulnerable to malware, should it actually
make it onto your system without being detected and/or blocked. Best
practices is to set yourself up a separate, limited rights user profile
to use for everyday, only logging on as Owner when you need
administrative rights.
FAT32 has the advantage of being visible to Win9x OS systems, and is
easier to repair *if* something goes wrong at file system level. To be
honest, I don't know too many people who try to manually repair FAT32
file systems at the "diskedit" level, and any time I need to snag data
off an NTFS partition that has gone bad, I haven't found it too
difficult to do, using another disk with XP installed.
So, the way you want to do this is to boot to BING, go into Partition
Work, click on the Win98 partition and then click on Properties at lower
right. Then click "Hide". This will make the partition unrecognizable to
Windows XP (it will still see it but won't be able to read it, and will
therefore not assign it a drive letter.) Then insert the Windows XP and
restart. At one point in Setup you are shown the available partitions
and asked which you want to install to, and how to format it. If you've
already formatted the second partition on HD0 as FAT32, Setup will see
that, but you'll still have the opportunity to format again, using
whichever file system you wish. If you told BING to create an NTFS/HPFS
partition, WinXP Setup will recognize it as an "Unknown", just like it
will see the first partition (Hidden FAT32 for Win98) as "Unknown". It's
good that your partitions are different sizes. Makes it easy to know for
sure which partition you're looking at.
Remember, you need to have a Win98 or other qualifying OS installation
CD to show Setup in order to complete an installation of XP from the
Upgrade CD. Otherwise, you'll have to leave the Win98 partition
UnHidden. (If you have to do it that way, there are ways to later
segregate the OS partitions, but it can be tricky.)
The fact that you have applications installed to HD1/Partition1 makes
things a bit stranger. Personally, I'd shrink that partition, create
another FAT32 partition to use in common between the two OSes. Store all
of your personal data there.
After XP is installed, you'll want to go back into Partition Work and
UnHide the Win98 partition. Then use the Boot Manager to determine which
partitions are visible to each booting scheme. Example: Boot scheme 1
would boot to the Win98 OS partition on HD0, and include all
partition(s) on HD1. The WinXP boot scheme might only show that second
partition on HD0 and Hide all the rest, or it might also show a new
second partition on HD1 that you are now using for shared data. I
strongly recommend against allowing the XP system to see either the
Win98 OS partition or the Applications partition on HD1. Set up this
way, both methods will show it's own Windows partition as C:\. On the
other hand, if you use Windows XP's boot manager, WinXP will be able to
see the Win98 partition *and* it will be C:\, while the XP partition
itself will be assigned the letter D:\.
Any more questions, <s>?
--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP Shell/User
http://www.grystmill.com/articles/cleanboot.htm
http://www.grystmill.com/articles/security.htm