Talk to me about dual-boot systems & partitioning

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am thinking about re-doing my computer and have a few questions about dual-boot systems and partitioning. Here’s what I have:

1.2Ghz AMD Athlon
Windows Me
128 Mb memory
80Gb HD
CD burner
DVD-ROM drive (that, due to improper installation at the factory, does NOT read DVDROMs, but functions well as a DVD player, I could fix it by switching the cables, but I have no need at this time)

Here’s what I wanna do:

Buy a DVD burner and some sort of video capture system to make my own DVDs. There’s a new DVD software package that allows you to make your own DVDs and VCDs, but it will only work on Win2000 & XP.

Questions:

  1. Should I use my system CDROM to restore my computer back to Day One and THEN partition?

1a. What partitioning software do I need?

  1. Should I get a full copy of Win2000 to run on a separate partiton?

  2. Is my processor fast enough?

  3. Should I just buy a new computer loaded with XP? (not really an option at this time)

2
  1. Naw. Just do a good backup, scandisk, and defrag.

1a. I’m very happy with Partion Magic, which I use (with Boot Magic boot manager) to keep my Windows98 partition separate from my Windows 3.1 partition and both of them separate from my data partition. On my next computer, I will probably have separate WindowsWhatever partitions, one for Internet access and one for Quicken since I have never been terribly happy about the fact that my Quicken data is connected to the Internet 24 hours a day. Plus, with a dedicated Internet partition, I wouldn’t need to worry about viruses or any of that very much, because I could just reimage that partition every week or so.

  1. Whatever operating systems you install, you’ll have to have them ready to install. I’m not sure what you’re asking here.

  2. If it’s fast enough for the operating systems, it’ll be fast enough for the partitioning software. It does it’s job once and then it’s done. The boot manager software does all of it’s work at bootup time, and a 486 could handle what it does.

  3. “Should” you? Dunno. If you’re going to anyway, then ask yourself if you feel like spending the money on this software you won’t need much longer…

Hope this helps.

3

7? I have no idea where that 7 came from. That was supposed to be a 4.

4

Actually, I phrased #2 incorrectly.

I should have asked if I should run Win2000 on a separate partition or should replace WinME WITH Win2000?

5

My 1.0 Ghz laptop is currently a dual boot WinME/Win2K machine. It runs both fine, so I think yours will as well.

You didn’t mention what OS you currently have. I’ll assume you have WinME/98/95. If so, go buy yerself a copy of Partition Magic. This is by far the easiest way to create a dual boot system. It’ll step you right through it, and you won’t have to go through The Hell That Is Backing Up and Restoring A Computer. That is, assuming you have enough hard drive space to create a partition.

If you don’t want to use partition magic, rethink that decision. OK, if you still don’t want to use it, then here’s your answers:

1 - No. In order to create a new partition, you need to completely reformat your hard drive. You’ll need to make a complete backup of everything, partition, then reinstall.

1a - Nothing. The Windows setup CD will allow you to reformat and create partitions.

2 - Yes

3 - Yes. I’ve run Win2K on machines WAY slower than the one you describe.

4 - You mean buy an XP machine and just run yer software on it and not do the dual boot thing at all? Sure, if you can afford it. If not, doing the dual boot thing will work just fine. Win2k was out long before the current rash of Ghz level machines, and runs fine on slower machines.

6

Depends on how you use your machine. A lot of “home” type software isn’t officially supported on Win2K. I like to game a lot, so I didn’t go with Win2K as my home OS even though I used it exclusively at work. Check the system requirements for your favorite software packages to make sure they’ll work with Win2K before installing it.

I’m not sure how easy it is to upgrade an ME machine to Win2k, either. Some little thing in the back of my mind says that even if there’s an official upgrade, it’s pretty buggy. I can’t remember the specifics, though.

7

I found this article about dual booting with ME & 2000 and the author seems confident it can be done. I would likely only use the 2000 partition for using the DVD software and the ME one for everything else.

Perhaps I could set the 2000 partition to load only the bare necessities required by the DVD software.

8

It definitely can be done, Mr. Blue Sky. I have a dual boot WinME/Win2k machine sitting right next to me right now.