DUAL OP systems set up W98SE and XP: how to?

[Guest]

Ok, i bit the bullit and am upgrading my old W98 PIII 600 to an Athlon XP 2000+ and 512M DDR ram.

Heres the scenario, im salvaging a lot of stuff from my old system, one thing being a 30G hd. Also have coming a newer slightly faster 60G one.

So, I'm new to dual boot configurations, so i want to run a dual boot system of both W98SE and WXP home, best of both worlds, keeping w98 for some of them apps and games that xp's not going to like.

I want XP on the newer fastest 60G HD since i'll be using that the most. the speed dif between the new drive and the old isn't that much, as its only 6 months old, the main thing is i want to mostly keep 98 and xp on separate hd's just for sanity sake far as maintainance goes.

I hear w98 has to be installed to a PRIMARY MASTER drive, and XP doesn't care where it goes?

Ok, so if this is true, i plan on making the 30g the PRIMARY MASTER of the first IDE channel, and the 60G a PRIMARY SLAVE on the same IDE channel.

My DVD\CDROM and CDR\RW will be on the SECONDARY IDE channel and the CDR\W BURNER will be the MASTER there and the DVD\CDROM the SLAVE, as i was told it's best to leave a burner as a master on a channel?

And the burner has "burnproff technology, so puting BOTH CD\DVD devices on the same IDE channel is mute for performance purposes as opposed to put one on one channel and the other on another for making direct CD to CD BURNER copies where having both on the same channel would cause performance problems when both devices try to share that channel and without burnproff tech you have a chance of the old "buffer under run problem" therefore creating the old coasters?

So, I'll install w98SE on one partion of the 30 GIGER say 10G in size which will become C drive, and make another 5G partion as well, so 2 partitions, 15G total on the old 30G HD JUST for w98SE as i figure ill hardly be using 98 exept to play those stuborn older games that won't like xp.

I will also make another 15G partion on that 30 gig, but leave that for stuff for XP.

I was told i should install 98 first, then XP?

I'm going to make everything FAT32 both for w98 and xp so i can at least swap stuff (data, text files ect) between op systems with no problems.

So, what do i do to get this up and runing? I will reformat the old 30G hd using the utilities that come with it (maxtor), and the new 60Giger (also maxtor).

So then i take it i can just go ahead and format and partition the 60 giger however i want, again FAT32 and just leave nothing on it till i install XP correct?

And how do i format all these partitions, what i mean is what partions are to be EXTENDED, bootable ect? I know the w98 one where w98 lives will have to be bootable, thats why i'm making it the MASTER, but what about the 60G?

I take it when i go to install XP AFTER i have 98SE on there, it will ask me whether i want to overwritw 98SE or whether i want to leave 98 alone and install XP on its own and where and it will handle all the dual boot jazz stuff, correct?

And is it a good idea to make 2 small partion somewhere SEPARATE from the w98 or XP partions (say 1G each) JUST for the VIRTUAL swap files for them, rather than leaving the swap file where the op systems live?

And one about video. As far as say MSFS2002 and say MS TRAINSIM and posibly TRAINZ are concerened, would a 128M vid card help?

In other words, should i go for say a 64M GF3 TI500 now (or very shortly) that they are gonna be cheap, or would it be better to go with a GF4 say 4400 with 128M ram and pay the premium for the extra 64M of ram?

Does the extra 64M of ram help these programs in particular, so i get a good idea what to replace my GF2 pro card with down the road?

Any input would be appreciated.
Dave Huddlestone

 

[Toejam31]

<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/multiboot.asp" target="_new">Multibooting with Windows XP</A>

Let's not get confused between hard drives and partitions. Not the same thing.

<A HREF="http://www.newlogic.co.uk/kbase/fdisk/page1.htm" target="_new">Quick Guide To Partitioning A Hard Drive</A>

For a dual-boot, Win98 must be installed on the primary active <i>partition</i>. That partition is normally on the drive jumpered as the Master, IDE 0.

Microsoft recommends that WinXP occupy a partition at the top of whichever hard drive you choose. So it would be best for it to be the in the primary DOS partition on the Slave hard drive. And having the operating systems on two different drives means that if one drive fails, the other will still be bootable, with only minor repairs to the system.

Your description of the placement of all your devices, hard drives and optical devices, is fine.

You can partition the drives however you wish. But I would suggest a primary partition of 4 to 5 GB, with your programs and personal files on a separate partition. This would allow you to create a relatively small Image file of the partition that contains the operating system files and your personal settings. An Image file is extremely useful, as with these kinds of files on a CD(s), it won't be necessary to format and reinstall the operating system again. See the <A HREF="http://www.powerquest.com/driveimage/" target="_new">PowerQuest website</A>, and check out Drive Image 5.0 for more details on Images.

Yes, the operating systems should be installed -- oldest version first. After Win98 is installed on the first, active partition on the Master hard drive, when you choose to install WinXP, it will allow you to choose the partition where it should be installed. If the partition doesn't exist, you can create it. You'll also be given options on the file system type, as well as being able to format. I highly suggest that you use the WinXP CD to format whatever partition you choose, even if a file system already exists. Otherwise, if in the future you consider using NTFS, the conversion process will fail.

During the installation, WinXP will load boot files on the root of the primary, active partition on the Master drive. This will cause a boot loader screen to appear on the display after the POST, with a thirty second timer, for choosing between the two operating systems. That timer speed can be adjusted later, from within WinXP.

When partitioning, first the primary DOS partition should be created on a disk. You should enable large disk support. But you should <i>not</i> make the primary partition the entire size of the hard drive, or there will be no room to make additional partitions. I suggest using a number and the percent key (25%, 50%, etc) for determining the size of the partitions.

The second partition you can make on a hard drive is an Extended partition. Extended partitions are not given a drive letter ... however you <i>must</i> create one before other partitions can be made. This will be the size of the remaining free, unallocated space on the disk.

Logical partitions are made out of the Extended partition. These can be sized to your preference, and these partitions can be assigned a drive letter.

When dual-booting ... three things. The primary DOS partition on the Master hard drive must be made active. The primary DOS partition on the slave drive should NOT be made active, despite the fact that WinXP will be installed in this partition. It will be made bootable during the WinXP installation.

Always reboot the system after creating partitions, before formatting, or installing an operating system.

When deleting partition, always do this is the reverse order of creation. Logical, Extended, and Primary.

You can create a separate partition on one of the hard drives for the virtual memory if you wish. In fact, Win98 and WinXP are capable of sharing the same paging file (or virtual memory, if you wish, as long as both OS's are using the same file system. It requires some user customizations.

<A HREF="http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cook/dualshare.htm" target="_new">Dual-Boot Page File Sharing</A>

(While the page is about Windows 2000 ... the instructions are completely applicable toward WinXP.)

As far as I am aware, there are no games that can currently take advantage of the extra 64MB of memory on a 128MB video card. This may change in the future, but that is the current state of affairs. Repost this specific question in the Graphics Cards section of the forum for further, up-to-date responses to this issue.

Toejam31

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