Right now i have windows xp running on my system. My hard drive is partitioned into C:Boot, D:Backup, and E:Recovery. What i want to do is put 95 on this system and then immedietly upgrade to 98 SE from there. Since the stuff on the backup “drive” isnt all that important to me can i just clear that partition and install 98 there or will there be conflicts. I really dont want to do a fresh install of everything all i want to know is how to go about installing 95->98SE on the D partition and getting it to ask me which OS to load when booting. Thanks
How large is D? If over 2 gb, format as FAT32, if less, use FAT. A problem happens if it’s over 2 GB, 95 can’t boot into FAT32 unless it is 95 OSR2.
I’ve never actually done a XP set up THEN a 95, usually it’s the other way around, but you will find a step in the setup that allows you to select dual boot. (at least I know 98 does)
You may want to wait for other geeks to step in with opinions on this, I’m a bit rusty.
I heard if you put XP on a computer with an OS already on it, that it asks if you want to
make a dual boot system & if so, does it for you. I haven’t tried it in practice.
Well, as much as I hate to direct you to a link (and possible bad news about the implications of doing this, considering XP is already installed on your system)… here you go. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q306559 … at any rate, there will probably be more qualified experts on this board to give you better advice, but it never hurts to see what MS has to say about all of this.
First, what file systems are the drives formatted with? Any NTFS drives will be invisible to Win9x, and FAT32 ones won’t work with Win95 unless it’s OSR2.
Assuming you get over that hurdle, you’ll need to edit C:\BOOT.INI. This is the file that governs what operating systems you’re given to choose from at startup.
Back it up first. Your system will be unbootable if it gets screwed up, so make sure you have a clean copy that you can restore from floppy. Again, this is a really bad idea if C: is NTFS; a Win98 boot disk will not be able to see it.
You’ll have to look up the parameters for BOOT.INI on Microsoft’s site. It’s bedtime for me.
Whoops, double post! Dumb AOL messed up and I didnt think it posted, didnt even realize you guys were replying. Anyway, since i didnt want to mess with the partitions on my 80GB with XP on it because of the fact that its NTFS and Win98 won’t see (didn’t want to reformat to change to FAT32)i just went ahead and yanked the 3.2 GB HD out of my sisters computer, reformatted it and put Win98 S.E right on there, problem solved. I only have one problem now, for some reason no matter what HD I choose to boot from (I just change the boot order in the Bios, I dont get an option upon booting the computer), the XP or the 98, it asks me if I want to boot from the HD or a CD. Once I take the 98 HD out will this message go away or do i have to change some sort of setting? Other than that its working out just fine, thanks for the advice and links!!
You also can get a HD select boot box for about $50.00. It has buttons on the front of it that lets you select
which HD you want to boot with… Should be at computergeeks.com