A Noob wants to setup a multiboot to play old games

[Jimmy]

In my old Dell, I've got a 160 gb harddrive with WinXP Pro and I've got the Windows 98 SE "recovery" cd that came with it. I would like to try creating a partition or something to put 98se on to play some of my old games. Since the CD is only a recovery disk, I am unsure if I would be able to do so.

[Ace]

In my experience, recovery CDs don't work for full installs, but then again I'm in the UK and I recall being surprised to hear that some US recovery CDs were more lenient. If it's a Dell recovery disk and a Dell PC, you stand a chance. Personally I wouldn't bother trying but rather acquire a full copy.

But you've got a few issues to think about.

- Given you're running XP, your 160gigger will probably have the NTFS file system on there. 98 needs the FAT32 file system. Hence you'll have to use partitioning software (probably 3rd party... such as Partitionmagic) to create a new partition and put FAT32 on there before getting your 98se disk out.

- My understanding is that, were you to retain XP on one partition, then stick 98se on another, you would screw up the XP boot loader and suddenly XP's not going to load when you power on. It'll just be 98, and you may have difficulties getting that to load too (although you shouldn't). You'll have to fix the WinXP Boot Loader, boot to XP, then edit boot.ini to include reference to your Win98 operating system on the other partition.

How to fix the WinXP Boot Loader... I can't really think offhand. Personally I'd take the HDD, stick it in another PC and copy across fresh copies of a few select files, stick it back in the original PC, and use the XP CD (assuming you have it) to boot to the recovery console and run some fixmbr commands and suchlike. Exactly what you *need* to do, I can't remember, even though I've done it myself a few times. But it isn't a piece of piss, and I'd recommend you do some research before you embark on it.

[Jimmy]

Is it possible to setup Windows 98se on other harddrive, and select which OS to use at startup? I've just started using Partition Magic and I haven't been able to create another partition...but I'm new to the program and I need to figure things out.

[Ace]

Setting it up on another hard drive should be much easier. The reason being you can remove the hard drive with Windows XP on (physically pull the power cable out of it), install 98se fresh on the other hard drive, then re-introduce your XP hard drive and set it to boot from the XP hard drive first in the BIOS. When you get back into XP, you can goto C:\boot.ini and add another line for the windows 98 operating system. Then a boot loader will show each time you start. You can set a timeout, auto boot to a specific operating system etc.

[Jimmy]

Ok, seems reasonably simple to do.

[stlouis1]

there's a way to do it man. trust me, i got an mcp, that dont really mean i know anything cuz i probly dont, im not good, just licky, as i like to say. but i know this.

if you want to setup 98 and xp as a dual boot. there's two ways.

the microsoft way
format a drive with fat32, install windows 98 on it, then install xp to a seperate folder on the same partition. this works, but is problematic because, they share the program files folder, no good.

the other way (seperate hard drive/partition)
have two partition's or two drives. one fat32 and the second ntfs. install windows 98 on the primary fat32 partition, or the primary drive formatted with fat. and then install windows xp on the second one with ntfs. this way, win98 doesnt recognize the xp partition so you have no access to crap it out when your in win98. and xp will have its own "system volume" seperate from the 98 drive. itll still c the 98 drive, but wont touch it unless you tell it too.

either way, 98 has to be installed first. why? try splitting a drive in two partitions, make the primary and ntfs partition and then start the 98 setup, it wont use that drive, you'll get errors, i've tried.

probly your best bet. is two put 98 on another drive, throw it in as the primary drive, the one with xp being your secondary. startup the system with the recovery console. run fixboot c:, then bootcfg /rebuild. this will put the xp loader on your 98 drive and rebuild the boot.ini to recognize both os's. this way, you dont have to reinstall xp jsut to get 98 on there

no f###in around round here ;)

[ADRAMELK]

You cant run the games in compability mode? I've never actually tried it but I hear it works for some things.

[stlouis1]

it works for some, not all. for dosgames, just get dosbox, works great

[Jimmy]

some windows 98 games can't even install in XP..."invalid win32 app" type errors..thats a significant reason for this project...

[stlouis1]

sometimes you have to run compatibility mode on the installer as well. when u have to do that though, is when you should start wondering whether or not its even worth trying

[saurongt]

Yeah, use partition matic, so you dont have to reformat.

[Jimmy]

If I were to use two harddrives...one for each OS...what would the jumpers be set at? Cable select?

[Jimmy]

I have win 98 se running on one hd and Xp pro on another...on startup i am to select from the two OS's...but when i select win98....i get a "boot configuration" error....whats wrong? is it my jumpers? or my boot.ini:


[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\Windows="Microsoft Windows 98SE" /fastdetect

Both OS's work fine on there own...just can find out how to dual boot