How to Dual Boot?

[Lazgoat]

Ok, how do I set up my PC to enable me boot from two different HDDs with two different OS's? ie IDE Cable and HDD jumper settings and any other required settings.

One will have Win XP and the other Win 98SE.
I need to migrate from the Win 98 HDD to WinXP but need it operational just incase things dont go smoothly.
Advise please!

Laz.

[cadaveca]

AFAIK, the OS'es need to eb on the same drive, as only one drive will be bootable, at least to the bios. maybe a custom INI file would work for you...
i have XP and Win64 on the same drive, and a second drive for files. On boot i get to select which OS i boot into, and that just took adding a line to the XP INI.

[dolanenwindrift]

Ok this is an easy one, depending on your BIOS. Set up each OS on the hard drive you want them to be on, but only hook up the drive that you are installing the OS on. Then set one to Master and one to Slave. Some BIOSes have a feature that let's you hit F8 when you boot and select which drive to boot from - which makes it super easy to select a boot drive on the fly. If your board doesn't have this, I recommend BootMagic from Powerquest - it is packaged with Partition Magic, which is a utility you should absolutely have in any case. It may not be as versatile as LILO or some of the other boot loaders out there, but it is very simple to set up and use and should work with any OS and drive combination. Good luck and let us know how it works out!

[GrahamGarside]

have 98 installed on the primary drive and make sure it's partition is active. Install XP on the other drive and it should detect 98 and put an entry in the boot.ini file
XP will put the boot files on the 98 drive so it will still boot from that one but load windows xp from the other drive.

[Lazgoat]

Originally Posted by dolanenwindrift

Ok this is an easy one, depending on your BIOS. Set up each OS on the hard drive you want them to be on, but only hook up the drive that you are installing the OS on. Then set one to Master and one to Slave. Some BIOSes have a feature that let's you hit F8 when you boot and select which drive to boot from - which makes it super easy to select a boot drive on the fly. If your board doesn't have this, I recommend BootMagic from Powerquest - it is packaged with Partition Magic, which is a utility you should absolutely have in any case. It may not be as versatile as LILO or some of the other boot loaders out there, but it is very simple to set up and use and should work with any OS and drive combination. Good luck and let us know how it works out!

Ok, so...the Win 98SE HDD is already being used. The new HDD arrives on Thursday...I install it as Master and install Win XP then Boot magic....power down re-attach the Win 98 HDD as slave? When I boot up BootMagic will ask which drive to boot to?

Laz

[Lazgoat]

Originally Posted by GrahamGarside

have 98 installed on the primary drive and make sure it's partition is active. Install XP on the other drive and it should detect 98 and put an entry in the boot.ini file
XP will put the boot files on the 98 drive so it will still boot from that one but load windows xp from the other drive.

ok I have the installed the XP Pro on the second drive but have not attached it yet.
Graham, will the Win 98SE partition still be active and useable if the Win XP drive is removed? I just spoke to the "tech support" and they reckon that dual booting is not reversible, ie permanent changes are made to the Win 98 drive.
The PC is a HP D330 business machine and I do have the option at startup to select the boot drive so this may be the way to go.

[Áedán]

To dual boot a Win98/XP system you need to:
A) have Win98 installed on the primary hard disk first.
B) Install Win XP on whatever disk, with the machine in it's final config (IE, both drives in place)
C) Win XP will change the boot loader on the primary disk, copying the Win98 boot sector to a file. This file is then used to boot Win98, when you choose Win98 in the Win XP boot loader.

Microsoft document this process on their website. See here for more details

Yes, this does makes changes to the Win98 system. It is reversable, but you need the correct tools to fix it. Basically, undoing it requires you to write the Win98 boot file back out to the boot sector on the hard disk.

[Lazgoat]

Thats great Aedan, thanks v-much for the link. Is there a chance things could go wrong during the install process and destroy the Win 98SE disk?
Also, what tools do I need to reverse the process if I have to?

LAz.

[GrahamGarside]

it is reversable, a dos boot disk can be used to boot up, delete the XP boot files and copy 98's back and then use fdisk /mbr